Nature Is My Muse

My first love, I have been writing poetry since I was a child. I have three manuscripts and several poems currently under consideration with multiple publishers and magazines. Night Clouds, published in the St. Katherine Review, is from a chapbook I wrote about my mother in her last days, Storm of Gold. My poems have appeared in Terminal City magazine, The Writers Studio anthology emerge2018, and RWI’s anthology, On Roots & Rootedness.. I am an accomplished poetry performer and have read live for hundreds of poetry lovers over the years.

My experimental short poetry film, Window Frame: A Year of Poems to a Tree, has had an amazing year, becoming an Official Selection for the 2024 Second Poetic Cinema Festival and the 2024 Cinestesya Film Festival, winning a Bronze Award at the 2024 WRPN Women's International Film Festival, and receiving Honourable Mentions at the 2024 Chroma Art Festival and The Night of Shorts. 

Window Frame features a short excerpt for each month from a year of poems written to the Asian pear tree outside my window. The film incorporates the sounds and colours mentioned over the year, immersing viewers in a shifting bath of colour animated by a rich soundscape as the seasons unfurl. It bears witness to the beauty of the land while invoking growing tension between humans and nature. In the act of creating this film, I am working to support decolonization through "land practice" (more on this below). The film can be delivered as a live performance or immersive installation and is available with or without subtitles. I am also creating original art postcards featuring the poem for each month, plus a small chapbook that gathers all 12 plus the colours from the film. 

Here's a review from the 2024 International Art Film Festival:

"Window Frame’ is a beautifully meditative exploration of nature, seamlessly blending poetry, sound, and visuals to highlight the subtle changes in a year. Deborah Harford’s attention to detail invites audiences to truly ‘see with their ears’ and appreciate the often-overlooked beauty around us. The film's connection to Indigenous wisdom and its reflective take on biodiversity makes it a poignant reminder of our relationship with the natural world. It’s a stunning piece that resonates deeply."

My love of nature and our planet have been a constant theme throughout both my creative and non-fiction writing. In my former role as Co-Founder and Executive Director of Simon Fraser University's ACT (the Adaptation to Climate Change Team - now the Action on Climate Team), I championed regional and national action on reducing climate risk and emissions through "low carbon resilience" approaches. Over 17 years at ACT, I authored and co-authored many academic papers, white papers, reports, book chapters (e.g. Ethical Water Stewardship), articles (e.g., Canadian Business and Landscapes/Paysages), op eds for major media (e.g., Vancouver Sun and Policy Options), and a book: The Columbia River Treaty: A Primer.

Poetic prose is a powerful tool for conveying heartfelt meaning. I was honoured to be invited, along with Jane Goodall, the Dalai Lama, David Suzuki, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other great heroes, to contribute to Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet. This creative anthology presents a series of voices organized as days of the year, offering insights on how we can go forward in hopeful ways that benefit both humans and the species with whom we so imperfectly share our precious planet. My day in the book is January 12th.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to live here and create this work on the unceded traditional territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish peoples. In Canada, we are confronting the injustices colonizers imposed on the Indigenous peoples who lived here for millennia while stewarding the environment. Settlers have paved the land, polluted the air and water, wiped out many of the species, and attacked and suppressed the life and wisdom of the original inhabitants. One of the drivers enabling this destruction is lack of attachment to the land. As Indigenous writer Thomas King put it, settlers always have “one foot in the boat.” It’s hard to care about a place you don’t feel attached to, or empathize with people whose relationship with it is so deep that they see it as family. In 2021, I completed an MEd in Contemplative Inquiry, during which I had the good fortune to learn from Anishnaabe professor Dr. Vicki Kelly. She suggested that one thing settlers can do is “Indigenize” through land practice - regular interactions with the local landscape that establish relationship. This suggestion came just as Dr. Suzanne Simard was publishing her research on trees and the ancient wisdom and caring they share in underground networks. I had already written the poems to a tree that would become the full Window Frame manuscript, and this wisdom spurred me to continue developing relationship with the land while developing a land practice workbook. Watch this space!