Author Description

Canadian poet Bob MacKenzie lives in a world of sharp contrasts mediated by shades of grey. In this world, there exists a fault line between the everyday in which most of us live and the fantastic, a dark place of dream, vision, and possibility where there's danger around every corner. Here exists that dark hole into which some of us sometimes falls, that place from which we fear we may never exist. Here is that place where those who feel unsafe and unprotected: the abused, the battered, the unwanted and used. in our world must finally go to hide. Not everyone who reaches this point can see the light that will guide him or her out again to safety. MacKenzie straddles the schism with one foot on each side, hanging on to the light and warily anticipating the encroaching dark. His poetry speaks of the darkness beyond and its dangers. His poetry speaks of those who escape to the dark for safety but fall in and become lost. But there is optimism in his poetry, which always speaks of the light, a light that is always present and can be found by one who doesn't give up hope and can be used to show the way home. In the very darkness of Bob Mackenzie's poetry, there is always hope.