Poetry volume presents “a diverse offering of entrances into the common and yet infrequently written about life of one woman inhabiting her own time, planting flowers while ‘knowing full well the battle [she] will wage and lose.'” —Catherine Owen reviews Whiny Baby, by Julie Paul (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024) $19.95 / 9780228020745
“A whole tradition of poetry met postmodernism in him, as he has achieved what he set out to do—carry it forward, weave it in, pass it on to us, and then let us swim on upstream, as his hands lift away.” —Harold Rhenisch reviews Poems Selected and New, by D.C. Reid (Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2023) $25.95 /8781771714129
“I’m writing this in part to address the request from readers of my other typography texts to write about Bringhurst, or perhaps pursue a retrospective. Both of these requests are solid and probably long overdue, so in this I attempt to take a first look at this pursuit.” Thomas Girard reviews two earlier books by Robert Bringhurst of Quadra Island, bringing readers a discussion on these influential titles: The Elements of Typographic Style & The Solid Form of Language.
“Light moves through the exposed
struts of the shattered Dome…”
Gary Geddes presents a selection of his poems to note Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2024
“These are fully realized observations, absolute and searing impressions of the profoundly joyful, as well as the unavoidably difficult.” —Cathy Ford reviews Islander, by Mona Fertig (Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2024) $22.00 / 9781896949895
“It seems to me that Kevin’s book documents his research into myriad formal and semantic possibilities, engaging in a practice that endeavours to stretch poetic narratives and structures.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews A Bouquet Brought Back from Space, by Kevin Spenst (Vancouver: Anvil Press Publishers, 2024) $18.00 / 9781772142259
A poet’s pensive and playful debut volume is also “probing, inventive, clever, fun, provocative, and challenging.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews [about]ness, by Eimear Laffan (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2023) $19.95 / 9780228019022
“Not only might dwelling inward and recognizing our place on this wondrous globe help us face and deal with our often buried or blurred anxiety, fear, and sorrow, it might help us find some faith and right action; Lilburn suggests it may show us the divine.” Steven Ross Smith reviews Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change by Tim Lilburn (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2023) $29.99 / 9781772127102
“The sheer intellect and sharp-eyed creator in these works has given history and perspective on a time and place of artistically fevering production, forging its own way.” —Cathy Ford reviews Another Order: Selected Works, by Judith Copithorne (edited by Eric Schmaltz) (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023) $34.95 / 9781772015539
Fine books of “aesthetic delights” feature evocative poems that examine everything from the loss of a beloved pet to the tending of a garden. —Catherine Owen reviews Hey Trouble and Other Poems, by Sharon McCartney (London: Baseline Press, 2023) $15.00 / 9781928066910 and In the Warm Shallows of What Remains, by Andrea Scott (Salt Spring Island: Raven Chapbooks, 2024) $22.95 / 9781778160356
Probing, technical collection of poetry touches on Romantic literature, German philosophers, and the natural world as its author searches for connection. —Harold Rhensich reviews A Blueprint for Survival, by Kim Trainor (Hamilton: Guernica Editions, 2024) $21.95 / 9781771838627
A complex long poem “interrogates the nature of the self (‘your brief signature’), and questions where the ‘you’ resides when the mind fades from the soul (‘you are home; you are not home’).” —Joe Enns reviews Dream House, by Cathy Stonehouse (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2023) $19.95 / 9780889714625
“Burn, baby, burn, they must have said and this is the fire in Bowering who…is on a feminist re-investigation of the legacy of a lost lady poet.” Linda Rogers reviews More Richly in Earth: A Poet’s Search for Mary MacLeod by Marilyn Bowering (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024) $34.95 / 9780228021124
Poet foregrounds nature imagery in her thoughtful inquires about family, cultural heritage, grief, and identity. —Daniela Elza reviews We Follow the River, by Onjana Yawnghwe (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $20.00 / 9781773861388
A “must-read” collection of poems reveals the poet’s critical examination of both the worlds he belongs to and his place within them. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Teeth, by Dallas Hunt (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2024) $19.95 / 9780889714526
A poetry collection’s “distinctive power” is founded on a “keen but understated awareness of the interplay between the human world and the natural environment.”—Christopher Levenson reviews Moving to Delilah, by Catherine Owen (Calgary: Freehand Books, 2024) $19.95 / 9781990601583
With sculpted sound and rhythmic exuberance a delightful and pensive volume of poems examines the living and the lived. —Michael Greenstein reviews Talking to Strangers, by Rhea Tregebov (Montreal: Signal Editions, 2024) $13.99 / 9781550656602
A poet “at the height of his powers” meditates on his literary tradition, provincial history, and aging. —Harold Rhenisch reviews The Capital City of Autumn, by Tim Bowling (Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2024) $20.00 / 9781989496862
Debut poems and capitalist criticism in the form of “intricate napkin doodles,” they are “spectacular gestures but not always particularly easy or comfortable reads.” —Harold Rhenisch reviews Tomorrow is a Holiday, by Hamish Ballantyne (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2024) $16.00 / 9781554202089
“[A]ccessible, literal, and often essential writing in lyrical form about the value of living in remote areas, the vitality of other species, and a vision for a more aware and rooted future.” —Catherine Owen reviews How Can You Live Here?, by Tom Wayman (Okotoks: Frontenac House, 2024) $19.95 / 9781989466698