Carla Funk, in her fifth book of poetry, illuminates the small and marvelous marginalia of earth, like the glistening trail of a snail en route, and looks prophetically to the not-so-distant future where cities burn and the body falls to ruin. A meditation on endings, intermingling wonder and praise with question and elegy, Gloryland offers poems for an apocalyptic age.

Better than anyone, Carla Funk finds words for the rural, the north, the troubled family, and for "that feeling when the world goes wrong and true." Reading this book makes me shiver with delight. This is a writer who's been baptized with the dark waters of poetry. I do not doubt her when she writes, "The name of God was always in my head." Her words will forever be in mine.

Lorna Crozier, author of The Wrong Cat and The Wild in You

Wisdom is here, and lament, and wit, in pentameter lines hewn of this earth--the bones, the butcher block--but also of "the pulsing star" and through "the needle's eye" to mystery. How does Carla Funk balance such tight and seamless clarity? It seems Gloryland is only as far as the sonnet that sings its name.

Barbara Nickel, author of Domain

Carla Funk was born and raised in Vanderhoof, the geographical centre of B.C. and one of the earliest Mennonite settlements in the province. Having grown up in a world of logging trucks, storytellers, ladies' sewing circles, and rural realism, she turned to poetry as a place to set down the images of her upbringing.

Since earning degrees in Writing and English Literature at the University of Victoria, her work has been featured in anthologies including Breathing Fire: Canada's Young Poets (Harbour, 1995), in various literary journals, and as part of the Poetry in Transit series. Her books of poetry include Blessing the Bones into Light (Coteau Books, 1999), Head Full of Sun (Nightwood Editions, 2002), The Sewing Room (Turnstone Press, 2006), and most recently, apologetic (Turnstone Press, 2010).

She lives with her husband and daughter in Victoria, where she served as the City's inaugural poet laureate from 2006-2008. She teaches in the University of Victoria's Department of Writing.

Carla Funk's profile page

Better than anyone, Carla Funk finds words for the rural, the north, the troubled family, and for "that feeling when the world goes wrong and true." Reading this book makes me shiver with delight. This is a writer who's been baptized with the dark waters of poetry. I do not doubt her when she writes, "The name of God was always in my head." Her words will forever be in mine.

Lorna Crozier, author of The Wrong Cat and The Wild in You

Wisdom is here, and lament, and wit, in pentameter lines hewn of this earth--the bones, the butcher block--but also of "the pulsing star" and through "the needle's eye" to mystery. How does Carla Funk balance such tight and seamless clarity? It seems Gloryland is only as far as the sonnet that sings its name.

Barbara Nickel, author of Domain