Darlene Witte is a recovering academic…

She is enjoying her re-release into the world of poetry after 25 years spent trying to express ideas about complex knowing within the formal requirements of academic writing. She says that poetry suits her better.

She grew up in Western Alberta, a little north of where movies like Legends of the Fall and Brokeback Mountain, were filmed. She says, “The prairie landscape forces you to focus on the near horizon, so your words explore the minute details of pattern, color and form; however, to orient yourself in the landscape and walk upright, you have to lift your vision and send your words out into the far horizons.”

Where she grew up, you can see for hundreds of miles, sometimes, in any direction. She says that, “The environment is very challenging, and the landscape has a great deal to do with shaping a writer. The juxtaposition of the near and the far, combined with isolation, and a climate that can be deadly, provided the perfect environment for an emerging poet and mystic.”

Moving to Vermont in 1993 to become a professor of Education at Northern Vermont University, she says, “Was the best move ever. The Vermont landscape, physically, emotionally and socially, is more embracing and far gentler than I was used to; thank God for Vermont and it’s people.”

Vermont has become her new spiritual home. She blends this new gentle land-and-people-scape into her life-long internal vision, and she hopes you enjoy her poetry.