John Leunissen was born in Holland and came to Canada with his parents in 1952. He studied at York University and spent the next three decades in education before accepting a teaching post in Colombia, South America.

That move opened up years of travel through Colombia and Venezuela, and it changed what he wrote about. Long to Remember, published in 2005, is a collection of poems drawn from that time, ranging from festive nights on a Chiva Bus to the weight of attending a funeral under genuinely dangerous circumstances.