WAVERLEY: An author from Waverley made good use of the past two years of COVID-19 restrictions to pen a book of poems called “Of A Boreal Sea.”
Mark E. Ryan, who’s children Josie, Nora and Isaac attend Waverley Memorial School, compiled a collection of poetry over the last two years. Some are reflections, a little bit of grit there too, he said in describing. He has just released the book.
He has written all his life but moved away from it until recent years.
“Over the last few years. I’ve been busy with kids and things, and then the pandemic struck,” he said. “I kind of started journaling a little bit, but the journaling turned back into poetry and kind of brought me full circle of things I used to do, and I had more time to do it. So the end result was this.”
Ryan was asked how he came up with the name for the poetry book.
“I surf, so I have a kind of a connection to the ocean. And growing up in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, a big connection he to boreal part.
“I spent a lot of time with my kids over the course of the pandemic in the forest, and I kind of took two things that have a lot of meaning and threw them together.”
He said it took him about a year-and-a-half to put the book together.
Ryan said he started journaling and journaling turned into poetry
“As it started to build, it was like something I always wanted to do. It was kind of like, maybe I should do something with this and put it out there.
“By the time I started working on deciding I was going to write a book to the time it was published, it kind of took off from there and turned from 70 to a 140 plus poems.”
He included his middle initial on the book cover so people wouldn’t confuse him with the other poetry author by the same name.
While many authors would care about sales, Ryan doesn’t.
“I love art. I appreciate art. And this is a little bit of what I can offer,” he said. “So just putting it out there is all I want to do.”
Currently, Of A Boreal Sea, can be purchased online, but many local stores are starting to take it. Among those include Bookmark on Spring Garden Road; Trident on Hollis Street; Indigo Spirit in Bedford, and talks are underway for other Indigo locations in Halifax. It’s also available in Bridgetown.
Ryan said his family and friends have been very encouraging.
“Everyone’s been supportive,” he said. “My mom has been my biggest fan by far. So that’s always good.”
