By Joan Skelton

As I finished my private anthology of stories about the Barrick (not Gold) family, entitled The Barn’s on Fire and Kay’s Down the Well, I saw multiple threads woven through it. One was the land. Many of the anecdotes involved farms in England and Ontario, homesteads in Saskatchewan, and cottages on Lakes Simcoe, Huron and Superior. Can a propensity, a behavioral trait, be inherited? The dog world is based on inheritability, not just with conformation, but with retrieving, herding and protecting. In the human world, though, there is antipathy to recognizing behavioral traits for fear of racial stereotyping.

I certainly saw the land-loving trait in me. When I arrived in northern Ontario, I felt as if I had come home. I was a person of the universe, not a city. Having been born, raised and educated in Toronto, I was never comfortable there. Although appreciative of art, music and academia, the developing gridlock of people and vehicles and buildings made me claustrophobic. At university, I escaped to Lake Huron, the Rockies and the Atlantic Ocean via summer employment. On the glacier-scoured rocks of Georgian Bay, my eyes absorbing bonsai trees leaning leeward towards retreating waves skirting away from shore, I was absorbed into the windswept scene. I flung out my first half-decent literary declaration to a would-be suitor sitting uncomfortably close beside me.

The WAR Series (Writers As Readers) gives writers an opportunity to talk about the books that shaped them, from first loves to new favourites.

Today we find out about the reading habits of Ottawa poet Jeff Blackman, who is releasing his chapbook So Long As the People Are People with Apt. 9 Press at the Raw Sugar Cafe on Monday, June 17th. He'll be joined by Stephen Brockwell (Excerpts from Improbable Books) and Christine McNair (pleasantries and other misdemeanours). Visit our Events page for details.

The winners of the Griffin Poetry Prize were announced last night at a ceremony in Toronto. David McFadden was named the Canadian winner for his book, What's the Score? (Mansfield Press). Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems (Yale University Press), translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah and written by Ghassan Zaqtan won the international award.

Poets Suzanne Buffam, Mark Doty and Wang Ping were the judges for the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize.