This is the Moon's Work

New and Selected Poems

DIANA HAYES

This is the Moon’s Work showcases Diana Hayes new work and a selection of poetry from early out-of print books. Diana’s themes are rooted in both the inner and outer worlds of nature and the psyche. Many of her new poems have been inspired by her practice of year-round, ocean swimming. The poems explore the world of Bardo where healing into a new life becomes possible.

Author: Diana Hayes studied at the University British Columbia and Victoria, receiving a B.A. and M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Her published books include Moving Inland, The Classical Torso In 1980, The Choreography of Desire, and Coming Home (anthology). Her play, Islomania: Saga of the Settlers, was produced by Salt of the Earth Productions. She is currently Production Manager for Salt Spring’s Theatre Alive, a member of Photosynthesis and started the Salt Spring Seal Swim Team in 2002. Over the past decade, Diana Hayes has expanded her poetic vision into the realm of photographic dreamscapes and narratives. She divides her time between writing, photography, producing literary events and working as a professional fundraiser.

On The Classical Torso in 1980: “In her poetry of moons and tides, of shadows and lights, Diana Hayes walks softly in order to hear ‘the
small sighing of the figures/when they discover a perfect quiescence...’ ...‘It is the moon’s work that brings us here,’ she says, and here is not only her island home with its water music, but also a psychic space – no paradise – where, ‘I fix my mind on repair’.”– Phyllis Webb

“These are extremely skillful meditative poems emerging from the movement of thought between the serenities of the writer’s coastal environment and her haunted psychic landscape. It is a book that
offers itself for repeated reading and deeper understanding.”
– George Woodcock

On The Choreography of Desire: “This is a work of great physical intelligence. In her poems and photographs Diana Hayes explores the
boundaries between male and female, passionate and mystical, in language and image at once utterly sensual and utterly transcendent. The searching force of her voice and vision discovers fusion at these boundaries we often see as fixed, and becomes the spirit incarnate, ‘the sparrow’s arcing flight’.”
– George Payerle

“This combination of verbal and visual imagery transcends the sensual and brings us close to the
insubstantiality of dream.”– P.K.Page

Published: September, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-896949-11-6

6 x 9 | 120 pages | CDN $19.95
Trade paperback with French flaps

Category: Canadian Poetry