Before Combustion By Nicholas Bradley Kentville: Gaspereau Press, 2023 $23.95 / 9871554472543 Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon * The title of Nicholas Bradley’s new book, Before Combustion, is drawn from a line in his poem, “Self-portrait in Lycra Skinsuit,” where the poet considers a schism in his cyclist persona. There’s the familiar self who, enveloped in…
Read more 1912 Fire, ash, and regrowth
The White Light of Tomorrow By Russell Thornton Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023. $22.95 / 9781990776533 Reviewed by Al Rempel * There’s a fire at the heart of Russell Thornton’s poetry, and it burns fiercely in his latest book, The White Light of Tomorrow. Thornton’s poems have a deep elemental underpinning and William Carlos William’s…
Read more 1908 Bright and invisible and true
Once upon a Time in the West: Essays on the Politics of Thought and Imagination by Jan Zwicky Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023 $29.95 / 9780228017097 Reviewed by Ron Dart * I lived for a couple of years in the young 1970s in northern Norway and Switzerland. I spent time in Norway with the mountain…
Read more 1897 Cultivating contemplation
The All + Flesh By Brandi Bird Toronto: House of Anansi, 2023 $16.99 / 9781487011826 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * We are all changed. Plague and pestilence have left many of us in a state of grief, our innocence lost, experience teaching us the perils of hubris. As usual, prayer translates to poetry as our…
Read more 1894 Notes on grief
Catalogue d’oiseaux By Aaron Tucker Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9781771666947 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Catalogue d’oiseaux is a long poem that portrays a pair of lovers in their forties remaking themselves into a couple, despite distance threatening to divide them. It is the rhythmic rocking of a body in isolation, two bodies…
Read more 1890 Love in the Quantum Age
False Creek By Jane Munro Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $19.95 / 9781990776090 Reviewed by Jodi Lundgren * I happened to open False Creek after a few days’ immersion in Milton’s Renaissance epic, Paradise Lost, and was unexpectedly struck by continuities between the two works. No, Munro’s book is not a narrative poem, much…
Read more 1885 Poetic ‘intelligence, curiosity, wonderment, and humility’
Boy in the Blue Hammock By Darren Groth Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $22.95 / 9780889714267 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * If you’ve ever walked alone at sunset to a summit view of the place you reside and reminisced about your travels and experiences, imagine adding an ethereal mist with shimmering silvers and golds to…
Read more 1884 Dog and Boy
Troll By Logan Macnair Vancouver: Now Or Never Press, 2023 19.95 / 9781989689479 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * I used to work in an indie bookstore that would not stock Jordan Peterson’s books. At the time, I was miraculously ignorant about Peterson’s existence; life was 3.5% better. When I realized why my former boss staunchly…
Read more 1883 Like ‘signing a waiver to having your blood pressure raised’
The Malevolent Seven By Sebastien de Castell London: Jo Fletcher Books, 2023 $35.00 / 9781529422771 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Full disclosure: Sebastien de Castell is a friend of mine. We met at a writer’s group several years ago just after he published his first novel, Traitor’s Blade, a swashbuckling, sword-fighting fantasy. I read it then,…
Read more 1882 Blood magic, rat mages, and righteousness
Reckoning By Patrick Friesen Vancouver, BC: Anvil Press, 2023 $18.00 / 9781772142167 Reviewed by Al Rempel * Patrick Friesen’s latest book, Reckoning, is a masterfully crafted, single long poem that ranges across all three senses of reckoning, weaving new themes together with familiar themes to those who have read his previous work. Reckoning: to calculate…
Read more 1879 What a wonder
Not Quite So Handsome By Danny Peart Vancouver: Milagro Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9780994932969 Reviewed by Patrick Connors * Vancouver’s Danny Peart begins Not Quite So Handsome with the poem “Intention,” which serves as sort of a prologue to the collection. The epigraph of the poem features lyrics from “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” by…
Read more 1873 Last words, famous and otherwise
Storylines: How Words Shape Our World by J. Edward Chamberlin Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $26.95 / 9781771623513 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * British novelist D.H. Lawrence once quipped that readers should trust the tale and not the teller. What did he mean? Prof emeritus J. Edward Chamberlin offers some possible answers in…
Read more 1853 Trust the tale not the teller?
Interview channel update by Richard Mackie * Since January 2023 Trevor Hughes, interim non-fiction editor of The British Columbia Review, has branched out as Video Segment Producer and curator of our new Interview Channel, hosted by YouTube. So far, Trevor has uploaded thirteen interviews that capture in words a broad spectrum of British Columbian authors,…
Read more 1841 BC Review interviews update
Welcome Trevor and Brett by Richard Mackie * On behalf of the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society and our Advisory Board I’d like to welcome Trevor Marc Hughes and Brett Josef Grubisic as interim editors of The British Columbia Review for the year May 1, 2023 to May 1, 2024. The position was made possible…
Read more 1813 Welcome Trevor and Brett
Announcing the BC Review interview series by Richard Mackie * In November 2022, at the most recent board meeting of the Ormsby Literary Society, the chair, Byron Sheardown, suggested that we open a YouTube channel and start an interview series. Board member Trevor Marc Hughes jumped at the suggestion. “I’ve got filmmaking experience,” he said,…
Read more 1757 Announcing interview series
Jerry Zaslove: the summing up by Talonbooks editorial staff * Last summer, Talonbooks was delighted by the arrival of the long-awaited Untimely Passages: Dossiers from the Other Shore, a collection of essays by the late Jerry Zaslove, who taught at Simon Fraser University from 1965 until his retirement in 2000. He retained an office in…
Read more Jerry Zaslove: the summing up
The Growing Season by Nelson Boschman, with a foreword by Lois Cho Vancouver: Nelson Boschman, 2022 $23.99 / 9781778083105 Reviewed by Dennis Wilkinson * Nelson Boschman displays an orgasmic-like giddiness towards wine. He is the eight-year-old at Christmas time, and wine is the biggest present under the tree with his name on it. This book…
Read more 1729 Wine and spirits
Words from the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age by Sean Arthur (Art) Joyce Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2022 $25.95 / 9781771714587 Reviewed by Christopher A. Shaw * Capturing the “Landscape of the Imagination” in the Age of Covid No matter where one stands on the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines, and who’s responsible, the events of…
Read more 1519 Reading the Covid landscape
Spectres of Fascism: Historical, Theoretical, and International Perspectives by Samir Gandesha (editor) Toronto: Between the Lines Books, 2020 $34.95 / 9781771135016 Reviewed by Stan Markotich * Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini … and Steve Bannon? When I was starting my undergraduate career at Simon Fraser University some 40 years ago, I often heard a joke that…
Read more 1416 Fascism now and then
Philosophers’ Walks by Bruce Baugh London and New York: Routledge, 2021 $35.96 (U.S.) / 9780367333133 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Growing up in North Vancouver, Bruce Baugh found himself drawn to taking “long, solitary walks” amongst its “ravines and forests.” During his later extensive studies, he was fascinated to discover that some of the philosophical…
Read more 1352 I walk, therefore I am