was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. As a child growing up in a prairie community where the local heroes were hockey players and curlers, she “never once thought of being a writer.” After university, Lorna went on to teach high school English and work as a guidance counsellor. During these years, Lorna published her first poem in Grain magazine, a publication that turned her life toward writing. Her first collection Inside in the Sky was published in 1976. Since then, she has authored 16 books of poetry, including The Garden Going on Without Us, Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence, Inventing the Hawk (winner of the 1992 Governor General’s Award), Everything Arrives at the Light, Apocrypha of Light, What the Living Won’t Let Go, Whetstone, The Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems, Small Mechanics, The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things, The Wrong Cat, What the Soul Doesn’t Want, God of Shadows and The House the Spirit Builds. She has also published a memoir, Small Beneath the Sky, and three children’s book, Lots of Kisses, So Many Babies, and More Than Balloons. In 2015, she collaborated with world-renowned photographer Ian McAllister on The Wild in You: Voices from the Forest and the Sea. Her most recent book, Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) was launched during the pandemic. Nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, it is a memoir, with poems, of her life with the poet Patrick Lane. Whether Lorna is writing about angels, aging, or Louis Armstrong’s trout sandwich, she continues to engage readers and writers across Canada and the world with her grace, wisdom and wit. She is, as Margaret Laurence wrote, “a poet to be grateful for.”

Since the beginning of her writing career, Lorna has been known for her inspired teaching and mentoring of other poets. Now a professor emeritus at the University of Victoria, she conducts poetry workshops across the country, particularly at Wintergreen and Naramata, and has taught at the Banff Centre.

Beyond making poems, Lorna has also edited two non-fiction collections – Desire in Seven Voices and Addiction: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Together with her husband and fellow poet Patrick Lane, she edited the 1994 landmark collection Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets; in 2004, they co-edited Breathing Fire 2, once again introducing over thirty new writers to the Canadian literary world. She also compiled and edited Best Canadian Poets, 2010.

Her poems continue to be widely anthologized, appearing in 15 Canadian Poets and 20th Century Poetry and Poetics. Her work has been translated into several languages. A Spanish edition of her poetry, La Perspectiva del Gato was published in Mexico City. She has read around the world in every continent except Antaractica and she is the official travelling poet of the award-winning magazine Toque and Canoe. An Officer of the Order of Canada, her numerous awards include five honourary doctorates and a Governor-General’s Award for Poetry. In 2005 she gave a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II.

Her reputation as a generous and inspiring artist extends from her passion for the craft of poetry to her teaching and through to her involvement in various social and environmental causes. A frequent guest on CBC radio, she hosted a special edition on poverty on “The Current.”