This Will Be Good by Mallory Tater Toronto: Book*hug, 2018 $18.00 / 9781771663946 Reviewed by Elee Kraljii Gardiner First published September 14th, 2018 * This Will Be Good is the debut book of poetry by Mallory Tater, an Ottawa native who studied writing at the University of Victoria before settling in Vancouver. “Shot through this… Read more #374 Mallory Tater and the feel of fire
songen: new poems by Patrick Friesen Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2018 $19.95 9781896949642 Reviewed by Danny Peart First published September 10th, 2018 * Victoria poet Patrick Friesen (born 1946 in Steinbach, Manitoba) also works with dancers, choreographers, and composers, and writes songs for musicians. Reviewer Danny Peart calls his latest book, songen, “the work… Read more #370 We were songen and rejoicing
First published Sept. 4, 2018. Narrow Bridge by Barbara Pelman Vancouver: Ronsdale Press 2017 $15.95 / 9781553805083 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * New from Victoria poet is Narrow Bridge, a collection that Christopher Levenson finds “humane, honest, well-crafted, and keenly aware of the outside world.” Pelman takes the reader on a walkabout to Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and… Read more #365 The texture of daily living
Our Familiar Hunger by Laisha Rosnau Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2018 $18.95 / 9780889713444 First published August 29, 2018 Reviewed by Elee Kraljii Gardiner * In Our Familiar Hunger, Laisha Rosnau of Vernon honours her Ukrainian grandmothers on their traumatic journey between Russia and the Canadian West. “Rosnau’s narrative is sewn tightly into these verses with… Read more #358 Ukrainian soil and blood
Elemental by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9781987915631 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson First published Aug. 23, 2018 * Despite the book’s title and its division into five elements — water, fire, wood, sky, and earth — the dominant feature of Elemental, Kate Braid’s seventh book of poetry, is less unity of… Read more #349 A carpenter poet adept at forms
Another Mountain to Climb by Danny Peart Vancouver: Milagro Press, 2017 $25.00 / 9780994932914 Reviewed by Isabella Wang First published Aug. 20, 2018 * Danny Peart’s third book of poetry, Another Mountain To Climb, is an open window into Peart’s exhilarating excursions up the peaks of Grouse Mountain and Kilimanjaro. One simply has to open… Read more #346 Called to the poethood
Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots by Erín Moure Vancouver: New Star Books, 2017 $21.00 / 9781554201419 Reviewed by Claire Sicherman First published April 19, 2018 * It is three weeks after the death of her former lover, Paul Émile Savard, when author Erín Moure learns he is dead, and that he died alone… Read more #290 Grieving with Google
MEMOIR: Endpiece: Recalling New Orphic by Margrith Schraner First published April 13, 2018 * Here Margrith Schraner recalls her twenty years as Associate Editor of The New Orphic Review of Vancouver and Nelson. “I now conceive of ‘Endpiece’ as a caboose—a railway wagon attached to the end of a train. The lights at the back… Read more #286 New Orphic Review bookend
A Temporary Stranger: Homages, Poems, Recollections by Jamie Reid Vancouver: Anvil Books, 2017 $18.00 / 9781772140989 Reviewed by Andrew Parkin First published April 4, 2018 * In a posthumously published collection by Vancouver poet Jamie Reid (1941-2015), there are poems of homage to a number of famous French poets from Baudelaire to Apollinaire, including Reverdy,… Read more #281 Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Jamie
From Oral to Written: A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980-2010 by Tomson Highway Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2017 $29.95 / 9781772011166 Reviewed by Deanna Reder First published March 30, 2018 * Eminent Cree author Tomson Highway’s From Oral to Written, released by Talonbooks in 2017, is beautifully flawed, inspiring the reader with tremendous lists of… Read more #277 The new turf of Indigenous Lit
First published Feb. 9, 2018. The tradition of printers supporting the literary arts is a very long one. Before there were trade publishing companies in British Columbia, the two major progenitors for books made in the province were Morriss Printing in Victoria and Mitchell Press in Vancouver. Mitchell Press still exists, although their headquarters is… Read more #245 Publish and cherish
First published Feb. 1, 2018. Trailer Park Elegy by Cornelia Hoogland Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017. $18.95 / 9781550178159 Reviewed by Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes Trailer Park Elegy is not Cornelia Hoogland’s first book-length long poem. Her Woods Wolf Girl (Wolsak & Wynn, 2011), for instance, is a Canadianized, modern retelling of Little Red Riding… Read more #242 A brotherly love revisited
Refugium: Poems for the Pacific by Yvonne Blomer (editor), with a foreword by Adam Olsen Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $22.95 / 9781987915532 Review by Phyllis Reeve First published Dec. 21, 2017 * What is a Refugium? Yvonne Blomer, editor and guiding spirit of this anthology, borrows her definition from the Canadian Oxford Dictionary as… Read more #227 Specific to the Pacific
First published No. 22, 2017. Ask someone to name B.C.’s most popular poet and you might hear names such as Earle Birney, bill bissett, Patrick Lane, Susan Musgrave, Dorothy Livesay… None match the fervour of adoration this province felt for Robbie Burns–as Fred Braches recalls upon rediscovering a little-known book about the Burns statue in… Read more #206 Robbie Burns remembered
A GATHERING TO REMEMBER AND HONOUR PETER TROWER WILL BE HELD FROM 3 – 6 PM AT THE FORMER LOCATION OF THE RAILWAY CLUB IN VANCOUVER ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25. THE VENUE IS NOW CALLED THE RAILWAY STAGE AND BEER CAFE. IT’S AT 579 DUNSMUIR. Peter Trower, one B.C.’s most beloved poets, has died at… Read more #201 Peter Trower (1930-2017)
Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea by Michael L. Hadley and Anita Hadley (editors), with illustrations by Matthew Wolferstan Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $36.95 / 9781771621731 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published Nov. 6, 2017 * This is an anthology with something like a mission. In “Waypoints,” his foreword to this anthology, historian… Read more #196 Batten down the anthology
Auguries by Clea Roberts London, Ontario: Brick Books, 2017 $20.00 / 9781771314510 Reviewed by David Stouck First published October 24, 2017 * Two-time Governor General’s Award winner Don McKay described Clea Roberts’ debut collection of poems, Here Is Where We Disembark (Freehand Books, 2010), as “exquisite frost-bitten brevities,” a phrase that aptly characterizes this Yukon-based… Read more #188 Spooked horses in a storm
Blaise Cendrars Speaks… by Blaise Cendrars. Edited and with an introduction by Jim Christy, translated by David J. MacKinnon Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2016 $24.95 / 9781771711906 First published in Paris by Denoël, 1952 and 2016 Reviewed by Serge Alternês Review first published Oct. 16, 2017 * This upcoming Remembrance Day we might recall and commemorate… Read more #183 Modernist poet Blaise Cendrars
ESSAY: Kipling on Vancouver Island by John F. Bosher First published October 11, 2017 * Rudyard Kipling’s first visit to the Pacific coast of British Columbia was in 1889 in the course of his journey from India via Japan and the U.S.A. to London with every intention of making a literary name for himself. He… Read more #178 Kipling on Vancouver Island
Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine by Meghan Bell (editor) and curated by the Growing Room Collective: Meghan Bell, Terri Brandmueller, Candace Fertile, Taryn Hubbard, Chelene Knight, Lindsay Glauser Kwan, Cara Lang, Alissa McArthur, Navneet Nagra, Bonnie Nish, Rachel Thompson, Kayi Wong, and Lisa Xing Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915402 Reviewed… Read more #168 Forty years of making room