History finds us all. In Three Winters, poet Ken Norris travels the world, only to discover crises at every turn. Taking winter as the season of travel and composition, Norris collides with the Democracy movement in Hong Kong as well as with its brutal suppression in the guise of governmental Covid control. He returns home to North America just in time to experience a worldwide pandemic and its ever-increasing lockdowns. In an attempt to salvage a third winter, Norris jumps through all of the Covid protocols that are in place and makes his way to Hawaii and to a tropical inspiration.

Three Winters poses a number of compelling questions. How does poetry both resist and document History? How does it survive “the plague years” that trouble humanity on a surprisingly regular basis? How can the freedom to choose be argued for and fought for through artistic struggle?

In poems that are both lucid and pointed, Ken Norris bears witness to the historical, political, and artistic conundrums that confront him as he journeys through three fraught winters. The results are surprising and insightful, moving and revealing.

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He came to Canada in the early 1970s, to escape Nixon-era America and to pursue his graduate education. He completed an M.A. at Concordia University and a Ph.D in Canadian Literature at McGill University. He became a Canadian citizen in 1985. Norris is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maine, where he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing for thirty-three years. He currently resides in Toronto.