Subduction Zone is a book of meditations on empire the desires and agendas of empire, and empires detritus. From a sweeping panorama of imperial landscapes both classical and modern, it carries us into the troubled natural beauty of the world. Its third and final sequence brings Canadians home, to the manifestations of global technocracy in northwest BC.Whether contemplating rain forests in the Visayan Islands or Edward Burtynskys photographs, these poems gaze unflinchingly at the exploitation and upheaval that define several millennia of global politics. Their questions are both urgent and intricate. Who are we individually, collectively, in this era of looming ecological collapse? How do we acknowledge the blood on our hands yet bear witness to the beauty that remains? Subduction Zone is a collection of great integrity and ambition: trenchant, political, shot through with ravishing eroticism and tenderness. Emily McGiffin is poised to become one of the major voices in Canadian poetry.