Award-winning poet John Pass will visit Jasper on Oct. 5 to give a reading from his latest book, crawlspace.

The book is the first volume Pass has published since he won the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in 2006, and the reading will take place at Jasper’s Habitat for the Arts, in conjunction with Alberta Arts Days.

Pass, who was born in England but moved to Canada at a young age and lived in numerous parts of the country throughout his life, said much of the inspiration for his writing comes from his physical surroundings and he finds the Rocky Mountains to be a particularly “compelling environment.”

“I spent time in the Rockies when I was a kid and there have been poems that grew out of those experiences decades later,” he told the Fitzhugh. “One, called Totem Creek, was written out of memories spent in the youth hostel there one August in the late ‘50s. My parents were ‘house parents’ for a couple of weeks, caretaking the hostel. I remember it was cold, and the forest and creek felt haunted to me, with placer mining shafts and pot-holes. I might read that poem.”

The poems in crawlspace are described as existing within “the narrowing passages imposed upon us by the inevitable strictures and limitations of living and experience: aging, love and loss, tightening or unraveling family ties.”

So what does that mean, exactly? Pass explained that the book is largely based on his own experiences with these life events but also explores the broader, shared experiences of all human beings.

“Firstly, of course, poems emerge from the poet’s experience, but I believe that close attention to the world and the wording results in work that will speak to everyone,” he said. “We share the world and the language. It’s the poet’s job to be true to those and trust that that truth is part of a larger one, human in all its dimensions. We all age. We all grow out of families. I hope what I’ve written out of my experience will resonate with everyone.”

But it won’t just be work from crawlspace on display at the Habitat. Pass said he expects to read about a dozen poems drawn from his last couple of books over a period of about 30 or 40 minutes.

Pass’s previous book, Stumbling in the Bloom, was published in 2005 and won the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry the following year.

Pass believes that his poetry “could appeal to nearly everybody” but realizes the reading might present a bit of a barrier for the uninitiated. He hopes to make everyone feel welcome.

“I know that hearing poems for the first time is something of a challenge so I like to give listeners a few footholds, a pathway, through the pieces I read,” Pass said. “I also like listeners to ask questions in between poems if there’s something that puzzles, or delights (or even annoys!) them. And there’ll be an opportunity for more questions/comments at the end.”

The reading is set to begin at 7 p.m. at the People’s Gallery at the Habitat for the Arts, 631 Patricia St. For more information, call 780-852-4747.