If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display by Nick Thran Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2023 $22.95 / 9780889714489 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * What a quiet charming title, If It Gets Quiet Later On … And Nick Thran, the poet and bookseller, uses it more than once to open sections of this…
Read more 1766 Trees, books, meditations
After Villon by Roger Farr Vancouver: New Star Books, 2022 $16.00 / 9781554201877 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * After Villon is a delight. These shape-shifting poems are playful and challenging and a bit like dealing cards from the bottom of a deck with a knowing wink. The Villon of the title was a poet of…
Read more 1763 A street kiosk of masks
oems by Matthew Tomkinson Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2022 $20.00 / 9781771837637 Reviewed by Matt Rader * Turned one way, words are never enough, never able to capture fully what they point to. As Robert Hass puts it, “because there is in this world no one thing / to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds, a…
Read more 1759 The bell of the artificial
Good Morning Poems: A start to the day from famous English-language poems by George Bowering Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2023 $20.95 / 9781774390658 Reviewed by Karl Siegler * George Bowering’s outstanding literary reputation is based on his over 100 published books of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction over the past sixty years, which have earned him…
Read more 1758 Poems traditional and modern
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
Time Out of Time by Arleen Paré Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9781773860794 Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon * Victoria poet Arleen Paré opens her slim volume, Time out of Time, with a note explaining the genesis of her project: the collection is a tribute to the Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan. But we might…
Read more 1756 Slender and chiselled lines
Red Obsidian: New and Selected Poems by Stephan Torre Regina: University of Regina Press, 2021 (Oskana Poetry & Poetics) $19.95 / 9780889777750 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * There is an old story on this coast, told by people working daily with the Earth, turning it into land, fields and crops. It is called ‘The Farm.”…
Read more 1754 The weight of the earth
Mother Tongue Publishing Limited: Trade Books and Limited Editions 1995-2021 Salt Spring Island, 2022 Available here for $10.00 including postage A special report by Phyllis Parham Reeve * Mona Fertig has retired. How can that be? For more than 40 years Mona has been a force of nature in BC’s literary community. First, there was…
Read more 1743 Mother Tongue bites its tongue
Susan/Elizabeth — a love poem by Kitty Blandy * I smell you before you arrive Leather and grass and skin Where have you been today? Friend, companion, confidante. I’m following. We joined at the beginning Before the beginning – Or maybe it was just at the end. You took me from singular to plural.[1] From…
Read more 1741 Susan/Elizabeth: a love poem
Don’t Tell: Family Secrets by Donna McCart Sharkey and Arleen Paré, editors Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2023 $44.95 / 9781772584240 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * Sisters Donna McCart Sharkey and Arleen Paré have gathered contributions of essays and poetry from sixty-one writers for Don’t Tell: Family Secrets. McCart Sharkey who grew up in Montreal…
Read more 1731 Secrets spared and shared
A note from Richard Mackie Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Readers of The British Columbia Review: In the last few days we have resumed the fundraiser we started on December 12, 2022, which we put aside while we posted 43 reviews for the Christmas book-buying rush. Thank you, everyone, for your donations and your continued support,…
Read more 1725 The fundraiser continues
Imitation Crab by Hamish Ballantyne Toronto: Knife/Fork/Book, 2020 $15.00 / 9781989355268 Reviewed by Terry Trowbridge * Rhetoric in Hamish Ballantyne’s Imitation Crab and Future Literacy in Canadian Publics In the Autumn of 2022, Toronto publisher Knife/Fork/Book restructured their operations. They closed their street-level bricks-and-mortar retail store, opting for online sales and to focus more energy…
Read more 1718 The rhetoric of Imitation Crab
The Oysters I Bring to Banquets by Gary Geddes Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2022 $22.00 / 9781771837101 Reviewed by Doug Beardsley * Opening Gary Geddes’ new book of poems, The Oysters I Bring to Banquets, I am reminded of something Irving Layton said some thirty years ago, when he intuitively discussed the essential characteristics of the…
Read more 1712 Liberating the ordinary
Blue Communion by Sean Arthur Joyce Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2023 $23.95 / 9781771714884 Reviewed by Gary Geddes * In “Words on the Wing,” Sean Arthur Joyce elegantly poses the question many poets face when they decide to sit down to write something: “How light must my touch be / not to snap bone, lose an…
Read more 1693 A poet’s light touch
Garden of Words by Pnina Granirer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $24.95 / 9781989467640 Reviewed by Diana Hayes * Pnina Granirer is an internationally respected artist and writer, living in Vancouver. Born in Romania in 1935, she later moved with her family to Israel where she studied at the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem. She…
Read more 1691 Poppies and sandstone
The Ramen by Sheldon Goldfarb * Editor’s note: as a Holiday and post-Christmas answer to that leftover turkey or that ham, lamb, or duck roast, we present Sheldon Goldfarb’s solution — The Ramen! Sheldon adds that the poem was inspired by the cartoon below, courtesy Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare — Richard Mackie * Once upon…
Read more 1688 The Ramen
Of Sunken Islands and Pestilence: Restoring the Voice of Edward Taylor Fletcher to Nineteenth-Century Canadian Literature by James Gifford (editor) Athabasca, Alberta: Athabasca University Press, 2022. $34.99 / 9781771993449 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Here’s a forgotten Canadian poet. Edward Taylor Fletcher. Also a surveyor, an immigrant from England, a cholera survivor, and a onetime volunteer…
Read more 1666 A gesture to Fletcher
Worth More Growing: Youth Poets Pay Homage to Trees by Christine Lowther (editor) Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781773860978 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * In the spring of 2022 Caitlin Press released their amazing themed anthology, Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees. Edited by Christine Lowther, that book was…
Read more 1661 Poets for the planet
Facing the Sweating Horse by Calvin White Surrey: Now or Never Publishing, 2022 $19.95 / 9781989689424 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Houses have views. They face them. Some face the street outside, or a garden, a fence, a city, a lake, a river or mountains. Some face fields and grasslands. Some face the sea. The…
Read more 1645 Ferlinghetti of the Shuswap
The Tree Whisperer: Writing Poetry by Living in the World by Harold Rhenisch Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2021 $29.95 / 9781554472314 Reviewed by Adrienne Fitzpatrick * I have spent the last few weeks in the company of a tree whisperer going from tree to tree on Sylix lands, absorbing the fruits revealed by light and…
Read more 1641 The wisdom of trees