Moving to Climate Change Hours
Ross Belot
AUGUST 2020
96 pages | ISBN 978-1-989496-12-1
**Finalist for the 2021 Hamilton Literary Award for Poetry**
**Finalist for the 2021 Kerry Schooley Book Award**
From industrial accidents to frozen highways, Belot charts what faces a working man in stripped-down lyric poetry. Moving to Climate Change Hours is a solemn ode to the end of oil, filled with poems that have seen it all and can acknowledge the darkness that’s coming while still finding beauty in the arched neck of a tundra swan. With a filmmaker’s sense of atmosphere and an environmentalist’s urgency, Belot’s stark lines take the reader deep into the heart of the industrial man.
Reviews | Interviews | Articles | Videos | Excerpt | About the Author
Advance Praise
“Ross Belot’s astonishing poetry steps off a moving train into the unknown. He deftly locates strangeness in the ordinary – in a sagging couch that shifts from one place to another in a room, or in a magpie that walks ‘through her body.’ We find ‘Yesterday was all chainsaw’ in poems that buzz with power, defying expectation. Moving to Climate Change Hours is a remarkable book, revealing a poet at the height of his craft.” – Anne Simpson, author of Strange Attractor
“It is wonderful to read these confident, wide-ranging poems. Belot takes recognizable subjects – work, marriage, parenting, drinking with co-workers, childhood, new love – and makes them strange again. Shifting between Canadian and American landscapes and locales, and using many different poetic forms, what emerges is a strong yet questioning personality, confronting his own life in middle age, as well as his own complicity in larger catastrophes. It’s a beautiful, intimate, ambitious, moving book written by a poet of great skill and deep feeling.” – Matthew Zapruder, author of Father’s Day
Reviews
Moving to Climate Change Hours by Ross Belot (Wolsak & Wynn/James Street North Books, 2020) (Catherine Owen, Marrow Reviews, 18/09/2020)
"Belot constantly shakes up his lingual structures, sometimes tossing in a mucked-with form, then lineating skinny, stretching his prosy arms, scoring slashes, shaping triplets, slotting in a few dark photos."
Interviews
The Environmental Urbanist episode for 2021-01-05 (Jason Allen, The Environmental Urbanist, 05/01/2021)
Ross Belot joins host Jason Allen to discuss his book Moving to Climate Change Hours, and how he went from oilpatch worker to ecopoet and activist.
How a former oil executive shunned fossil fuels and became an activist poet (Matthew Hague, Canada's National Observer, 08/12/2020)
In this interview, Ross talks about how he transitioned from oil insider to artist and how he’s using poetry to raise environmental awareness.
WHAT INSPIRES POET Ross Belot? Author Interview (crystal fletcher, All About Books, 17/11/2020)
Ross and crystal talk about his new collection.
E197 with ROSS BELOT (Jamie Tennant, Get Lit, 27/08/2020)
An interview with Ross!
Thinking about entering the CBC Poetry Prize? Past finalist Ross Belot has some advice for you (Daphné Santos-Vieira, CBC Books, 14/05/2020)
"Poetry is an attempt to say the unsayable."
Articles
Read Hamilton (Open Book, 27/11/2023)
A wonderful gathering of Hamilton books in one place, including Ross's poetry.
CELEBRATING CANADIAN POETRY AND LYRICS ABOUT LOVE (Sandy Di Yu, Canada-UK Foundation, 14/02/2022)
Ross's poem "The Edge of Everything" is included in this list of love poems!
Five Fun Books to Understand Climate Change (Aimee Yeo, The Pilar, 12/03/2021)
Aimee Yeo chooses Ross' poetry as one of Five Fun Books to Understand Climate Change.
Hamilton writers are out with new books to consider for holiday gifts — or just for yourself (Jeff Mahoney, The Hamilton Spectator, 11/12/2020)
Ross' collection is included in this round-up of Hamilton book for the holidays.
The best Canadian poetry of 2020 (CBC Books, 08/12/2020)
Ross' collection makes the list of the best Canadian poetry of 2020.
What Would I Say Then – The Pantoum and Ecopoetry (Ross Belot, Ross Belot Poet & More, 28/10/2020)
Ross' poem "What Would I Say Then?" selected for the 9th International Video Poetry Festival
37 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2020 (CBC Books, 23/09/2020)
Ross' book is one of 37 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2020.
11 New Books That Will Change How You Think About the Climate Crisis (Sarah Neilson, Shonaland, 07/08/2020)
Ross' collection makes the list of 11 New Books That Will Change How You Think About the Climate Crisis.
Most Anticipated: Spring 2020 Poetry Preview (49th Shelf, 06/02/2020)
Ross' collection makes the list of the 49th Shelf's Most Anticipated Spring Poetry.
Videos
ON LEAVING – 1ST VIDEO GALLERY POEM. (Ross Belot, Ross Belot Poet & More, 31/07/2020)
Ross shares a video poem as part of his series for the Canada Council’s Digitals Originals program.
Excerpt
Read an excerpt from Moving to Climate Change Hours.
About the Author
Ross Belot is a poet, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and an energy and climate change columnist. He previously worked for a major Canadian petroleum company for decades before retiring in 2014. Now he writes ecopoetics and opinion pieces about government climate change inaction. Ross was a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2016 and longlisted in 2018. In 2017, he completed an MFA at Saint Mary’s College of California. Born in Ottawa, Ross has made his home in the Golden Horseshoe since 1970.
