In her book Wayside Sang, poet Cecily Nicholson explores life on the roads and through the fields of southwestern Ontario. She will return to the border region where she spent her childhood for a free public reading of her work on Monday, March 2.

In addition to Wayside Sang, winner of the 2018 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, Nicholson is the author of Triage and From the Poplars, which won the 2015 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.

The GG awards jury described Wayside Sang this way: “In this hypnotic suite of long poems, Cecily Nicholson makes room, offering glimpses and echoes of the Canadian landscape as she explores ideas of borders, identity, industry and travel. She offers a catalogue of impressions, a collage of the ephemeral, held together by image and the pulsing phrase that stays with you long after the journey’s over.”

Doors will open for Monday’s event at 7 p.m. at Common Ground art gallery in Mackenzie Hall, 3277 Sandwich St.

It is sponsored by the Department of English and Creative Writing; students Brandon Cormier and Alexa DiCecco will also read their original works.