Brad Cran's highly anticipated second book of poetry, Ink on Paper, is a compelling collection of political poems that seek to elucidate our relationships with our surroundings as well as those who surround us. Cran, former Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver, masterfully constructs images held in contradictory tension, as in his civic poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Grey Whale and Ending with a Line from Rilke":  And there you were  below the mountains  in the heart of the city  gazing at the grey whale.  You must change your life. Cran's poems are a fresh, provocative examination of urban culture, the natural world and issues of social justice, told with keen awareness and a gritty poetic precision.