Stirring Poetry That Will Make Us Stop and Think About Who We Are and Where We are Going

STRATFORD, Ontario - A fascinating anthology of poems, Leaning Willow, written by poet and author Douglas Alexander Bors, brings together a lifetime of the author’s best poetic pieces that exhibit an edgy style of poetry tackling human life.

Influences on his work range from medieval to modern. The poems address modernity and the fate of humanity. Each poem shines on its own with each theme intertwined with the next, making the seven sections form into a circle -- a moving cycle where each poem becomes the context for all others that precede it and follow it. Some of the poems express the issues with cutting cynicism, others express the same issues with comic relief, and most of the pages reflect the author’s sense of faith, hope and love.

Bors’ thoughts expose modernity from the material to the metaphysical, from the mundane to the profound but ultimately they are about being human. The multiple levels of meanings are more evident on some pages than on others; some of the symbolism will be more obvious while some may require longer reflection and a more metaphorical exploration. One unique aspect of the collection is that there is a conscious effort to bury a loose story line so that each section reacts to or extends the previous and the final poems revisit the first. In light of the West’s desire to militarily and economically transmit its “way of life” around the world, Leaning Willow questions whether that way of life is something that is worth spreading.

Douglas Alexander Bors was born on June 25, 1950. He has moved around and lived in the Northeastern United States, Hong Kong, and the Canadian prairies, among other places. During his early twenties, Douglas began writing poetry, mostly as an exercise for himself. He was educated at the University of Florida, the University of Regina, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, where he is currently teaching statistics in the Department of Life Sciences. Douglas and his wife Eva have settled in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.