No Lines in Nature

No Lines in Nature is a phrase taken from Jacques Rivette’s film La Belle Noiseuse based on a short story by Balzac where an aging painter contemplates the significance of art and life. The artist in the film says, “the human body is not contained within the limits of a line…A line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon an object; but there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid.” In this debut poetry collection, Joe Enns breaks life into pieces line by line then realigns the images like a stained-glass window. Rooted in the vivid scenery of British Columbia, from the Fraser River to the Okanagan Valley to Vancouver Island, Enns connects patterns of impressions that encompass a life.