Hawking the Surf by Diana E. Hayes

Reviewed by Cynthia Sharp

Hawking the Surf, released by Silver Bow Publishing in 2025 by Salt Spring Island writer and photographer Diana E. Hayes, is an invitation to wholeness with art in every breath. In wordsmithing wizardry from earth to sea, Hayes steers readers through heavy storms, her call for compassion permeating as we battle mortality in the search for meaning. She evokes universal knowing, every leaf and wave realms of intergenerational connection, literary traditions woven like DNA, all of it alive. With symbolism seeping through photos like “Bridging the White Water” and close-ups of roses and dragonflies, musicality hooks readers, then transports them beyond words to mood and time, to that space within, that paradoxical connection with eternity in moments of peaceful presence. Poems like “How Do You Spell Joy?” and “Walk the Labyrinth” invoke reverence, to open to the unique flavour of now, while others like “Memory of Wonder” are perceptibly restorative. “I see you in the apple trees next to the gabled shed/ climbing, always reaching higher…/ Know I will be there in the flowers—/dahlias, hydrangeas, dianthus, pansies,” Hayes writes of loved ones looking on, then passes the torch to readers, “Your hand now holds this pen—/your poem forms the song./ Sing now, I am not far on the wind.” For every connoisseur of literature and every emerging writer seeking the way—if you only read a handful of poetry collections, this should be one.

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About the Author

Diana Hayes currently resides on the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish Hul'q'umi'num' and SENĆOŦEN speaking people-what is known as Salt Spring Island BC. She was born in Toronto and has lived on the east and west coasts of Canada. Her debut novella, Looking for Cornelius, was published fall 2025 by Wipf & Stock/Resource Publications. She launched Raven Chapbooks in 2020 and publishes small edition poetry chapbooks featuring B.C. poets. Poet's Website: DianaHayes.ca

About the Reviewer

Known as Canada’s Mary Oliver, Cynthia Sharp is the Writers International Network Vancouver Poet Laureate. She’s the author of Ordinary Light, a first-prize winner in the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Book Awards for BC Authors, as well as in the International Impact Book Awards in Sustainability and Contemporary Poetry. She also penned Rainforest in Russet and The Light Bearers in the Sand Dollar Graviton. Her fiction, poems, creative nonfiction and reviews can be found in many literary journals including CV2, untethered, The Miramichi Reader, The Pitkin Review and Prism and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Silver Bow Publishing

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ Nov. 7 2025

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 78 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1774033895

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1774033890