ChatGPT and me by Larry Hannant * The media today is agog with artificial intelligence and its boundless possibilities to expand mere mortals’ striving towards perfection, or to relegate them to the scrap heap. The intensity quickened on March 14, with the release by OpenAI of version 4 of ChatGPT. In a thoughtful Globe and…
Read more 1773 ChatGPT and me
Rare Merit: Women in Photography in Canada, 1840-1940 by Colleen Skidmore Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022 $39.95 / 9780774867054 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * Anyone who ever doubted the presence of female photographers in Canada from the middle of the nineteenth century ought to read Rare Merit: Women in Photography in Canada, 1840-1940. Colleen Skidmore begins…
Read more 1772 Daguerreotype to Kodak
Ghosthawk by Matt Rader Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $18.95 / 9780889714045 Reviewed by Kelly Shepherd * In what is probably one of the earliest examples of ecopoetry (“Smokey the Bear Sutra,” 1969) the American poet and environmental philosopher Gary Snyder describes the presence of several “great centers of power” throughout the North American continent. The…
Read more 1771 Specific to the Okanagan
Silent but Deadly: The Underlying Cultural Patterns of Everyday Behaviour by Kirsten Bell London, UK: Caw Press, 2022 £11.99 (U.K.) / 9781399936323 Reviewed by Tom Koppel Trigger Warning: Skip this review if you are truly offended by offensive language * Kirsten Bell (not to be confused with actress Kristen Bell) got her anthropology training in…
Read more 1770 Dissecting the everyday
Black Umbrella by Katherine Lawrence Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2022 $18.00 / 9780888017475 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * How much do readers of poetry want, let alone need, to know about other people’s intimate family lives? Fiction has always explored the domestic world, but poetry…? Whereas in English language poetry it was fine for male writers…
Read more 1769 Filtering adult stratagems
Oscar and the Folding Airplane by Peter Chapman, illustrated by Carl Osberg, with Polly Wilson (book design), Brent Alley (photographer), and Tom Hellum (web design) Victoria: Privately printed, 2022 $18.00 / 9781777941505 Also available for free download here Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Peter Chapman’s children’s book grew out of father-son story-telling sessions, in the…
Read more 1768 Oscar and Sawdust take wing
Home is where the street is: Commercial Drive photos and poems by Rodney De Croo * I’ve lived in East Vancouver for thirty-five years. East Van is where I rented my first basement suite apartment after living on the streets as a young man struggling with addiction. It was in the basements of churches and…
Read more 1767 Home is where the street is
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
Scrubbing the Sky: Inside the Race to Cool the Planet by Paul McKendrick Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2023 $28.95 / 9781773272085 Reviewed by Douw Steyn * The strange “naked ape” we are has been on planet earth as a distinct species for about 200,000 years. Most of that time we spent migrating across all continents,…
Read more 1765 Cooling our jets
Canada, By Jove by Betty Annand Airdrie, Alberta: BWL [Books We Love] Publishing, 2021 $16.99 / 9780228619437 (Amazon price and Amazon print ISBN) Also available as an eBook for $2.99 from these retailers Reviewed by Valerie Green * Betty Annand’s book, Canada, By Jove, is a charming tale of two young brothers, Ernest (Ernie) and…
Read more 1764 The adventures of Ernie and Bert
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
Sombrio by Rhonda Waterfall Guelph ON: Gordon Hill Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781774220672 Reviewed by Steven Brown * Sombrio, by Rhonda Waterfall, is a dark tale of estrangement, paranoia, delusion and self-loathing, set to the tune of some kind of woodsy mystic opera, complete with the ethereal sound of singing off in the dark forest….
Read more 1762 Three on a beach
Incredible Crossings: The History and Art of the Bridges, Tunnels and Inland Ferries that Connect British Columbia by Derek Hayes Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $46.95 / 9781550179903 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Pacific Highways and Byways: Travelling Through BC History by Boat, Train, Road or Armchair Pick a road, any road. Chances are you’ll…
Read more 1761 Pacific highways and byways
E.J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist by Robert Amos Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2022 $35.00 / 9781771513852 Reviewed by Peter Clarke * Few artists have been so quintessentially identified with the West Coast as E.J. Hughes. At the time of his death in 2007 he had long been known as a reclusive figure living at Shawnigan Lake…
Read more 1760 E.J. Hughes: the formative years
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
Uncertain Kin by Janice Lynn Mather Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Doubleday Canada), 2022 $29.95 / 9780385697156 Reviewed by Alison Acheson * A dusty rooster and a badly tuned radio woke Priscilla just before six. It’s perfect detail that draws you in to Janice Lynn Mather’s world. Once there (with one exception, a story of…
Read more 1755 God on the dock
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