In Skaldance, GARY GEDDES is the suspect tourist, the New World man who seeks connections with people and landscape his forebears left long ago. In poems situated in the Orkney Islands, Geddes explores the eccentric lives of the Orkney people, and he interweaves into landscape and seascape the way wind and sea have shaped their hardened characters. With wry, quiet humour, Geddes examines their understated language and the subtle rhythms by which they live their lives. As the observer, the outsider, Geddes's complex persona ranges emotionally from ironic detachment to passionate engagement. Though at times he leans into hilarious satire, he is always humane. Even when inhabiting Orkadian myth and history, he lodges his sweeping tale in the hardships, pleasures, and desires of individuals fighting to survive. The poems in Skaldance are intelligent, witty, exquisitely crafted, and supple in their expression. GARY GEDDES is well known as Canada's best political poet.

Among his awards are the Archibald Lampman Prize, a National Magazine Gold Award, the Commonwealth Poetry Competition Americas Best Book Award, and the Gabriela Mistral Prize. His poems have been translated into Dutch, French, Spanish, and Chinese, and he has lectured and given poetry readings in a dozen countries. Formerly a professor at Concordia University, Montreal, he now lives near Victoria and writes full-time. His memoir Sailing Home: A Journey Through Time, Place & Memory became a coast-to-coast bestseller.