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    ISBN: 9781772012880 | Paperback

    112 pages | Pub. Date: 20210208
    6 W × 9 H × .3 D inches
    Frontlist | Poetry | Bisac: POE023030
    Rights: WORLD

A History of the Theories of Rain explores the strange effect our current sense of impending doom has on our relation to time, approaching the unfolding climate catastrophe through its dissolution of the categories of “man-made” and “natural.” How do we go on with our daily lives while a disastrous future impinges upon every moment?

Stephen Collis provides no easy answers and offers no simple hope. Instead, he probes our current state of anxiety with care, humour, and an unflinching gazing into the darkness we have gathered around ourselves. Asking what form a resistance to the tenor of these out-of-joint times might take, A History of the Theories of Rain explores the links between climate’s “tipping points” and the borders constraining the plants, animals, and peoples forcibly displaced by a radically altered world ecology.

“Taken together, these poems are as much an account of how we humans are grappling with a terrifying environmental predicament ... as they are odes to Earth itself.”
Poetry Foundation

Collis’s “work is immediate, timely and timeless, providing amplification to what the lyric has long held as a quiet, underlying thread; by Collis, this eco-poetic is not mere flowering, but magnified... Collis has become one of our most essentially-engaged contemporary poets... [his poetry] is a rare lyric that includes actual action.”
—rob mclennan, periodicities

“The past was imperfect, the present is imperfect, and so is the future. No naïve idealism lurks in the words carefully chosen by Collis, who warns us that every step is a risk ... Collis reminds us of the consequences of homocentric thinking in a world that depends on diversity.”
Ormsby Review

“Stephen Collis has achieved something remarkable: an invigorating body of work that convincingly addresses both the urgency of the present moment and the long echoes of our historical and lyrical past … The depth and scope of Collis’s vision is startling and impressive; so are the courage, precision, and care he brings to the poems he creates.”
—Hoa Nguyen and Margo Wheaton

By Stephen Collis

Stephen Collis is the author of six books of poetry, including the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize–winning On the Material (Talonbooks, 2010). His memoir, Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten, was published by Talonbooks in 2018. He teaches contemporary poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University. Collis was the 2019 recipient of the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, which is given to a mid-career poet in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian poetry.

Read more about Stephen Collis


news | 2022-10-14
Review of “A History of the Theories of Rain” in Prairie Fire Magazine

…Environmentalist poetry collection A History of the Theories of Rain by Stephen Collis was reviewed by Jody Baltessen …


news | 2022-02-01
Stephen Collis, Scholarly Impact at Simon Fraser University

…eight books with Talon, including his most recent A History of the Theories of Rain , a poetry collection that explores the links …


news | 2021-12-15
Two Talon Writers Make the CBC Best Canadian Poetry List

…We are delighted to announce that A History of the Theories of Rain by Stephen Collis and OЯACULE by Nicole Raziya … CBC’s Best Canadian Poetry of 2021 list. A History of the Theories of Rain explores the strange effect our current sense of … the tenor of these out-of-joint times might take, A History of the Theories of Rain explores the links between climate’s “tipping … altered world ecology. Pick up your copy of A History of the Theories of Rain here. OЯACULE occurs at the intersection of …


news | 2021-10-14
Stephen Collis, a Governor General's Finalist

…Literary Award in the poetry category for his A History of the Theories of Rain . A History of the Theories of Rain explores the … the tenor of these out-of-joint times might take, A History of the Theories of Rain explores the links between climate’s “tipping …


news | 2021-04-26
CBC Books' Spring Poetry List

…They’ve recommended Stephen Collis’s A History of the Theories of Rain , Leanne Dunic’s One and Half of You , …


news | 2021-04-08
You’re invited to our Spring Launch on April 15!

…One Good Thing , and Stephen Collis reading from A History of the Theories of Rain ! Thursday, April 15 5:30 p.m. PT Register and …