"Finding the right words for this place that has become home." That's the challenge identified by the Yukon's pre-eminent poet in this accomplished new collection. In the opening essay, Friis-Baastad describes his arrival in the Yukon as a 23-year-old fresh from Toronto, and his search for contemporary ways to evoke a landscape already mythologized by Jack London and Robert Service. These poems, written over three decades, provide ample evidence of his achievement. Taut, spare, haunting, they draw on both Old and New World influences to fashion a distinctively Canadian and circumpolar voice. They also reveal a pull between a chosen northern landscape and what the poet calls a "longing for distance from the beloved other." "Tell me," he says to the Yukon River, "as I hesitate here/while you/indulge yourself/in a marsh/will either of us/ever find ourselves/at the sea?" The publication of Wood Spoken is a landmark event in the Yukon literary scene. Its release will consolidate Friis-Baastad's reputation in the literary community and enable a wider readership to encounter an impressive body of work.