On the journey to self-discovery, language has the power to transmit – across distances, jumping the track from one language to the another, one culture to another – a psychic density capable of fundamentally informing one’s prism of perception.

Though I did not move my lips
I was listening
when the border guard said
“Don’t forget your motherland.”

When Conditions are Right is the result of a lyric poet’s on-going contact between the inherited world of others and his own. Generating sparks of startling imagery, this book is an open invitation for the reader to imagine, create, grow, their own native realm.

Randy Kohan is the author of three previous collections of poetry with Ekstasis Editions. His first collection, Hammers & Bells (2013) was translated into Russian and re-released as a dual-language work in 2019. With facilitator and co-translator Zaira Makacheva, they travelled to Russia, introducing this edition to readers in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Makhachkala, Dagestan. In St. Petersburg, they were the first Canadians to present at the V.V. Mayakovsky Central City Library. And in Makhachkala, Hammers & Bells - Колокола и Молот (2019) won Best Book of Poetry at the prestigious Tarki-Tau Book Fair. Born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Randy lives with his wife and two sons in Edmonton, Alberta.

Find Randy Kohan on the web at randykohan.com