Landings: Poems from Iceland by Harold Rhenisch Regina: Burton House, 2021 $20.00 / 9780994866967 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * I love Harold Rhenisch’s writing. I think it deserves far more attention than it gets. Harold and I have a connection, in a sense, because we both write from and about our beloved places in the…
Read more 1276 In any other country
Linda Rogers reviews two books: The Collected Poetry of Carol Shields by Carol Shields and Nora Foster Stovel (editor), with a foreword by Jan Zwicky Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021 $34.95 / 9780228008873 * Witchcraft Therapy by Mandi Em Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2021 $21.95 / 9781507215838 * Disclaimer: I do not…
Read more 1271 Kitchen windows & witches
Scofflaw by Garry Thomas Morse Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2021 $18.00 / 9781772141726 Reviewed by Danny Peart * Scofflaw has been described as a long poem, a playful exploration of Indigenous-Settler relations and globalized pressures. The long poem is divided into 14 poems, to give us a breather in between, in a paperback edition of 72…
Read more 1270 Scofflaw & the corn-fed media
Idiolect by P.W. Bridgman Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771714280 Reviewed by Philip Resnick * I have largely refrained from doing book reviews since my retirement from UBC, having paid my dues in this regard on more than one occasion during my years in academia. If I decided to make an exception in this…
Read more 1262 Poetry from a special place
Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo by Sue Goyette (editor) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9780889778016 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * They say our first toy is language, Joyce’s baby tuckoo arranging the universe in a sound poem, later a song, a novel. We are not only amused but also…
Read more 1256 Poems of innocence & endurance
INTERVIEW: Matt Rader with The Ormsby Review Matt Rader is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Visual Inspection (2019) — reviewed previously by Paul Falardeau –– as well as a collection of stories and a book of non-fiction. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) and lives in Kelowna….
Read more 1254 Interview with Matt Rader
This Was the River by John Pass Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $18.95 / 9781550178753 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * Winner of the 2006 Governor General’s Award for poetry for a previous volume, Stumbling in the Bloom, John Pass is, no doubt justifiably, dismissive in his opening poem, a kind of sonnet, of many of…
Read more 1233 Alert to the sound of language
In Singing, He Composed a Song by Jeremy Stewart Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2021 (Brave & Brilliant Series) $19.99 / 9781773852201 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * Have you ever woken up in a haze or dream-like state? Or wondered how long spans of time have seemingly disappeared from memory? In Singing, He Composed a…
Read more 1231 Coming of age in Prince George
My Art is Killing Me and Other Poems by Amber Dawn, with a foreword by Doretta Lau Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020 $17.95 / 9781551527932 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Amber Dawn’s second collection of poetry, My Art Is Killing Me, certainly details the toll that personal revelations can have on a writer, but the…
Read more 1222 The contradictions humans live by
Two books reviewed by Harper Campbell: SH:LAM (The Doctor) by Joseph Dandurand Toronto: Mawenzi House, 2020 $19.95 / 9781988449715 * The Sasquatch, the Fire and the Cedar Baskets by Joseph Dandurand, illustrated by Simon Daniel James Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2020 $14.95 / 9780889713765 * Joseph A. Dandurand is a man of many roles. A member…
Read more 1221 Dandurand in tandem
The Pit by Tara Borin Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $18.95 / 9780889713949 Reviewed by Michael Turner * Tara Borin’s first poetry collection The Pit takes its name from a Dawson City hotel, “the Yukon’s oldest and longest-running.” Christened the Westminster Hotel in 1898, its building (rooms, bars and a diner) has undergone numerous additions and…
Read more 1216 Despatches from the Pit
Gold in the Shadow: Twenty-Two Ghazals and a Cento for Phyllis Webb by Diana Hayes Salt Spring Island: Rainbow Publishers, 2021 $24.95 / 9780973440874 Gold in the Shadow is available here and here Reviewed by Isabella Wang * The poetry community flourishes on a synergism of influence, friendships, and what poet Stephen Collis calls “the…
Read more 1215 Couplets of inspired brushstrokes
Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss by Betsy Warland, with a foreword by Susan Olding Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2021 (first published by Second Story Press, 2000) $22.95 / 9781771338370 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * In this time of global suffering and intolerable waiting, there is private room, a virtual closet, for introspection, undressing and redressing….
Read more 1213 Sex and death in God’s closet
Could Be by George Bowering Vancouver: New Star Books, 2021 $18.00 / 9781554201785 Reviewed by Karl Siegler * George Bowering, Canada’s first Poet Laureate and author of over 100 books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, could be dead. In April of 2015, standing in front of the Point Grey Library in Vancouver, B.C., his heart…
Read more 1201 Must be Bowering
INTERVIEW: Marion Quednau with The Ormsby Review Marion Quednau has won numerous awards for both her fiction and her poetry, including a National Magazine Award, and the People’s Choice Award when shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her fiction has received critical acclaim, the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, when the late Mordecai Richler…
Read more 1200 Interview with Marion Quednau
Strangers by Rob Taylor Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2021 $19.95 / 9781771964197 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * Decades ago I came across the statement that “a poet is someone to whom significant things happen.” At the time this seemed to me the height of neo-Romantic pretension, elevating poets as sensitive souls set apart from the rest…
Read more 1189 The special in the ordinary
Waymaking by Moonlight: New and Selected Poems by Bill Yake Anacortes, WA: Empty Bowl Press, 2020 $20.00 (U.S.) / 9781734187342 Reviewed by Ron Smith * I’ve just finished reading Bill Yake’s Waymaking by Moonlight: New and Selected Poems. As I reflect on the complexity and insight of his vision, I’m left wondering why I’ve never…
Read more 1178 The intelligence of deer trails
Diary of a Pandemic Year by Art (Sean Arthur) Joyce New Denver: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021 $20.00 / 9780995240162 Reviewed by Roger C. Lewis * The day after Covid, surgical masks lay dead in the gutters, so many leaves riffled into history by the collective sighs of billions – breathe O breathe free at last!…
Read more 1173 Dandelions through asphalt
The Essential Elizabeth Brewster by Ingrid Ruthig (editor) Erin, ON: The Porcupine’s Quill, 2021 $14.95 / 9780889848788 Reviewed by Susan McCaslin * Ingrid Ruthig’s The Essential Elizabeth Brewster, a new volume in Porcupine Quill’s Essential Poets Series, is a gathering of some of the best and most representative selections from Canadian modernist poet Elizabeth Brewster…
Read more 1171 Elizabeth Brewster: A vital ghost
Little Resilience: The Ryerson Poetry Chap-Books by Eli MacLaren Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $37.95 / 9780228003496 Reviewed by Carole Gerson * We have long needed this book! For 35 years, from 1925 to 1960, Canadian poets writing in English were sustained by the Ryerson Poetry Chap-Book series, which issued some 200 booklets…
Read more 1166 Canadian poetry: the untold story