This was an excellent read. A volume of poetry that I grabbed off the shelf randomly and read from time to time over a couple weeks. I don’t believe one should read poetry like a novel, from cover to cover, but rather it should be read one or two poems at a time slowly and meditatively.

I had never heard of the author but on the book cover he described himself as an Albertan poet, writer and conservationist. Sky Humour was published in late 1998/1999 by Black Moss Press (and later reissued by Frontenac House in 2010). It is Sid Marty’s third major poetry collection, following Headwaters (1973) and Nobody Danced with Miss Rodeo (1981).

Setting and Context

Unlike his earlier poetry focused primarily on his time as a Parks Canada mountain warden, Sky Humour centres on Marty’s life living in rural southwestern Alberta. The poems explore domesticity, raising a family, maintaining a homestead, chopping firewood, and working the land against the backdrop of the modern Rocky Mountain foothills.

Key Themes

• Domestic and Rural Life: The collection contrasts the grandeur of the Alberta landscape with everyday domestic realities—fixing roofs, seasonal changes, and rural labor.
• Unpredictability of Nature: The title poem references the deceptive nature of prairie and mountain weather (“All promise of rain is just sky humour”). Weather operates as an unstable force shaping daily life.
• Mortality and Ecosystems: Marty presents death, forest fires, children, and wildlife as interconnected components of a continuous natural cycle.

The collection uses a direct, accessible free-verse style characterized by concise observations of rural Alberta life and the natural world. No rhymes and no sonnets, but the free verse really worked for me. The fact that most (not all really) of the poems take place in settings I have been, visited, hiked through, rode my bike past or at the very least driven past the road sign for was a big factor in how much I enjoyed this slim little volume. When people think of poets they imagine Shakespeare with a quill pen composing sonnets to comely twink-boys, or a dude in a beret ranting about war while jazz sizzles in the background. Fine, good. But we don’t generally imagine a man hunting elk at dawn, or pulling apart hardwood pallets for smoking said elk and this is exactly what this poet and this poetry was. I love how he captures the spirit of Albertans and our relationship with the land that we live on. To continue with the aforementioned elk, he captures the essential difference between American hunting culture and ours: up before dawn to face the reality of where our food comes from. No branded clothing or cable channels, just a rifle and 600 pounds of animal to drag back through the bush to deal with.

Coyotes and their midnight music. Drought drying up everything from the creek to the farmers’ hands. Fixing the roof, again. While these are not topics specific to Alberta they are part of our collective experience in this harsh and beautiful land we call home. Would someone not an Alberta native “get” these? For sure, but it makes a lot more impact to those of us fortunate to have fought and lost against the land, then won, then made our uneasy peace with it. I loved this book and recommend it to all Albertans. If you’re reading this from where you live abroad, by all means give it a go but I don’t think you’ll have the same experience as we happy few that get to experience our land every day. Sky Humour made me more grateful for that privilege and I’ll keep this in my heart and mind going forward.