Richard Lemm grew up in cool 1960s Seattle, raised by alcoholic grandparents with a mad, absent mother and a mythic father who might or might not have died before he was born. To avoid the draft, he left "the greatest country in the world" and moved to Canada just as the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Now, having constructed a new and equally imagined identity, he uses his poet's sensibility to examine the familial myths and cultural privilege that shaped his youth?the unsettled frontier, the golden age of the 1950s, the noble warrior, the little woman and the inexhaustible natural resources of the Pacific Northwest. This wry, poignant and insightful memoir looks at growing up in a family and country you didn't chose and coming of age in the country and with the people you did.
Richard Lemm has taught creative writing and literature at the University of Prince Edward Island since 1988. He is the author of six poetry collections, a short fiction collection, and a biography of Milton Acorn, Canada's People's Poet. A past—president of The League of Canadian Poets and past co—chair of Access Copyright, he has served on juries for The Canada Council for the Arts, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the CBC Radio Literary Competition, and the Governor General's Award for Poetry.
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