Breath and Dust

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

Breath and Dust is a collection of poems written over a 25-year period.
The poems trace the growth of the poet through these years and his
travels through Europe, China, and India on a search for place, be it
geographic or emotional. He constantly refers to his state of exile and
quite often expresses a feeling of anxiety at leaving his family far
away in Western Canada. He seems to be on an extremely sensitive and
difficult quest for a place to which he can belong, but he finds no
concrete resolution.

The book is divided into four sections. The first section takes place
mainly in North America and England, with many references to a lack of
place for the inhabitants. “This is a land stitched by distances /
Where families scatter on the wind / A land rough as her/ Mountains.”
Place and emotion are often described in terms of water—rivers, lakes,
oceans, rain, and ice. This is the starting point of his quest. The
second section takes place in China, and he uses traditional Chinese
poetic forms to further his search. He makes use of historical
references to draw comparison to his own life and again employs the
image of water as his main vehicle. The sense of exile from his family
intensifies in this section.

The third section sees the poet growing more philosophical about his
quest and it becomes greater than himself: “We are alone, choosing
sides, / Children playing tag / With the universe.” The fourth section
contains more mature poetry. There is almost a feeling of resignation
that his wandering will never end, yet he expresses a feeling of love
and caring for his family that seems to present a sense of grounding for
his soul. In total, these poems present a history of the poet, a history
of ancestors, a history for each reader.