Stephen Pax Leonard
Arctic Journal grew out of twelve months of fieldwork, living in a remote corner of the Arctic in the most northern permanently inhabited settlement in the world. It is a response to an alluring polar environment and different way of life whose appeal leaves an indelible mark on the mind, changing forever one’s perspective on the world. Written in large part during the dark period when there is no sun at all for over three months of the year, the poem is the product of extraordinary circumstances which allowed certain privileged insights into what is happening hamani ’down there’ in the urbanised world of megacities and environmental destruction. Battling bitter cold, solitude, a wall of mistrust and the winter darkness, Arctic Journal is a chronological poem of introspection and marks the arrival of an important poet. 3
