Joe Enns • Artist • Author • Biologist • Vancouver Island, BC
Literary Work Available
No Lines in Nature: Poetry Collection
Joe Enns
Overview
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.
Publisher: Joe Enns
ISBN: 978-1-0692999-1-8
Reviews
“So, let’s welcome Enns as a new master poet to this tradition of fisher poets. Like the others he is a master at throwing a line—in his case, literally. At their best, the lines of his verse are exquisite casts. The poems through which they flash, stream, curl, and bend are pools of still water. Heart, mind, and world merge into attention.”
Harold Rhenisch, The British Columbian Review
Publication History
Poetry in Literary Magazines
GUSTS, and
Nonfiction publications
The Link
Book Reviews
Contests & Awards
Joe’s fiction was short-listed for the 2024 Malahat Review Novella Prize and FreeFall’s 2020 Prose and Poetry Contest.
Awards include the Meadowlarks Award (VIU 2021) and the Pat Bevan Scholarship in Creative Writing – Poetry (VIU 2020).
About
Joe has a BA in Creative Writing and Journalism from Vancouver Island University and a BSc in Ecological Restoration from the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Currently, Joe’s day job includes fisheries work as an Aquatic Biologist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada where he shifts his skills towards technical and academic writing, publishing technical reports and papers on Pacific salmon and habitat. Joe’s fisheries experience also includes sonar counts for Fraser River sockeye and pinks, stream habitat mapping, electrofishing, and snorkel counts.