Rosemary Clewes is a poet, nonfiction writer, photographer and artist; her extensive northern travel forming a body of work in both poetry and prose. After many rich years as an MSW, a dressage rider, pianist, painter and printmaker, she embraced writing and poetry. She has rafted and kayaked some of the great rivers and fjords in western Canada and the Eastern Arctic.
Living on the cusp of her personal frontiers is a recurring theme, and in prose and poetry she conducts a conversation with the land, seeking to understand her place in the larger order, and in the power and fragility of nature.
“I consider myself an explorer, charting the serendipitous events where the physical and the miraculous meet. I am interested in the authentic moments, when we forget ourselves and find that we have come home”.
She has published five books: a book of prose and poetry titled, Thule Explorer: Kayaking North of 77 Degrees, (Hidden Brook Press, 2008) and four poetry books; Once Houses Could Fly: Kayaking North of 79 Degrees, (Signature Editions, 2012) Paper Wings, (Guernica Editions, 2014) A chapbook entitled Islands North and South, (Aeolus House, 2017) and The Woman Who Went To The Moon,(Inanna Publications, 2017).
In addition to her books, Rosemary Clewes has been published in journals and anthologies across Canada. In 2006, she was a finalist in the CBC Literary Awards for the suite entitled, Where Lemon Trees Bloom In Winter: Sojourn in Sicily. In 2005, an earlier version of Thule Explorer: Kallaalit Nunaat was nominated by The Malahat Review for The National Magazine Awards.
She lives in Toronto.