Rain Shadow by Nicholas Bradley Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772123708 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson First published April 24, 2019 * What should a poet know? Far more than with ornithology or the myths of ancient Greece, poets need to be obsessed with, and knowledgeable about, language itself, in all its multiplicities,…
Read more #535 What a poet should know
Rocks, Ridges, and Rivers: Geological Wonders of Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks. A Roadside Tour Guide by Dale Leckie Calgary: Broken Poplars Press, 2017 Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing, Kelowna $27.95 / 9780995908208 Reviewed by Syd Cannings * Dale Leckie’s Rocks, Ridges, and Rivers was a 2018 finalist in the High Plains Book Awards…
Read more #534 Geological splendours of Yoho
From the Heart of it All: Ten Years of Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by Heidi Greco (editor) Vancouver: Otter Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9780994821942 Reviewed by Yvonne Blomer First published April 20, 2019 * For ten years (2008-2018), the Thursdays Writing Collective was an important part of Vancouver’s literary scene. At its goodbye party…
Read more #533 Downtown Eastside Scribes
Blamed and Broken: The Mounties and the Death of Robert Dziekanski by Curt Petrovich Toronto: Dundurn, 2019 $20.99 / 9781459742932 Reviewed by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt First published April 19, 2019 * On October 14, 2007, Robert Dziekanski arrived in Vancouver on a flight from Poland to begin a new life in Canada. In Blamed and…
Read more #532 The death of Robert Dziekanski
J. Michael Yates (1938-2019) An obituary by Alan Twigg * Creator and manager of Sono Nis Press from 1966 to 1976, J. Michael Yates has died in Vancouver General Hospital on April 17, 2019 from a variety of ailments. He was one of the most influential literary figures in British Columbia during the 1970s when…
Read more #531 J. Michael Yates (1938-2019)
MEMOIR: My Private Italy by Grahame Ware * We are delighted to present “My Private Italy,” the second instalment of Grahame Ware’s social history memoir, a larger project with the working title In the Moonshadows of My iMac. The first instalment, “My Private Chinatown,” was published in the Ormsby Review #501 (March 08th, 2019). In “My Private…
Read more #530 My private Italy
Chinatown Ghosts: The Poems and Photographs of Jim Wong-Chu by Jim Wong-Chu Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781551527482 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan First published April 13, 2019 * When Chinatown Ghosts was first published in 1986, Jim Wong-Chu broke a silence in Canadian literature. This slim volume of poetry was one of the…
Read more #529 Poems & portraits of Chinatown
Quarrels by Eve Joseph Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9781772141191 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau First published April 11, 2019 * On April 9, 2019, Victoria poet Eve Joseph, for her book Quarrels, was announced as one of three Canadian finalists for the handsomely-endowed 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize, along with Ontario poets Sarah Tolmie and…
Read more #528 Fleeting moments that matter
Graffiti, Canadian Style by Ernest Hekkanen First published in The Ormsby Review, April 9, 2019 * It was twenty years ago, in 1999, that Ernest Hekkanen wrote this diatribe about why Vancouver public art is so godawful, why Canada’s granting agencies can be foolish or corrupt, and why he rejected a contract from a respected…
Read more #527 Canadian graffiti
Black Star by Maureen Medved Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781772141122 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published Apr. 7, 2019 * Encountering the barbed and dazzling shards that make up the word world of Black Star, a reader might feel on uneven ground. And for good reason. This is a novel that jolts, jars,…
Read more #526 Lies, tenure, and dark energy
All the Oceans: Designing by the Seat of My Pants by Ron Holland, with a foreword by Rupert Murdoch Vancouver: Ron Holland Design, 2018 $45.00 / 9781775096801 Reviewed by Marianne Scott First published Apr. 6, 2019 * Eminent yacht designer Ron Holland, born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1947, moved to San Francisco in 1969,…
Read more #525 Ron Holland makes a splash
James Cook: The Voyages by William Frame with Laura Walker Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $49.95 / 9780773552869 Reviewed by Robin Fisher First published April 5, 2019 * Every time I receive a new “cook book” to review I open it up in the hope that the author(s) will have something new to…
Read more #524 Just another Cook book?
Inner Ranges: An Anthology of Mountain Thoughts and Mountain People by Geoff Powter, with a foreword by Chris Bonnington Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2018 $22.00 / 9781771602877 Reviewed by Stephen Slemon First published April 4, 2019 * Canadian mountaineering writing would have struggled to find its public voice, were it not for Geoff Powter. For…
Read more #523 Powter’s alpine passages
Upend by Kevin Spenst Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2018 $15.00 / 9781926948652 Reviewed by David Stouck First published April 1, 2019 * In Vancouver’s poetry scene Kevin Spenst was probably first noted for his inventive forms of self-advertising. To promote an early chapbook titled Fast Fictions (2007) he printed and distributed a map of where…
Read more #522 Nurse log and a Great Blue Heron
Beyond Forgetting: Celebrating 100 Years of Al Purdy by Howard White and Emma Skagen (editors), with a foreword by Steven Heighton Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $22.95 / 9781550178463 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb First published Mar. 31, 2019 * A book of poems about a poet. What a notion. But actually poets often write about…
Read more #521 The Al Purdy Poets’ Society
The Afrikaner by Arianna Dagnino Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $20.00 / 9781771833578 Reviewed by Alan Twigg * In Arianna Dagnino’s The Afrikaner, a brave and resilient woman ventures to the Kalahari Desert to find her place in Rainbow Nation. The novel arises from the author’s five-year stint as a journalist in South Africa during the…
Read more #520 Somewhere inside the rainbow
1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike by the Graphic History Collective and David Lester, with an introduction by James Naylor Toronto: Between the Lines Books, 2019 $19.95 / 9781771134200 Reviewed by Janet Mary Nicol First published March 29, 2019 * Editor’s note: In September 2020, 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg…
Read more #519 Back to Bloody Saturday
What Forever Feels Like: A Memoir of Johnsons Landing by Ellen Burt New Denver: Maa Press, 2018 $23.00 / 9781999554804 Reviewed by Lee Reid First published March 28, 2019 * The old magic of “once upon a time” can ambush us, especially when we see the loves and challenges of our own lives mirrored in…
Read more #518 Matriarchs of Johnsons Landing
Ocean Falls: After the Whistle. Recollections and Reflections of Life in a Coastal Company Town by R. Brian McDaniel Victoria: Printorium Print Works, 2018 $40.00 / 9781999420703 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * The story of a town that no longer exists is destined to be poignant, at least in places. The fact that it’s…
Read more #517 Sunshine for the Rain People
Being Ts’elxwéyeqw: First Peoples’ Voices and History from the Chilliwack-Fraser Valley, British Columbia by the Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe (producers) and David M. Schaepe (editor) Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $94.95 / 9781550178180 Reviewed Charles R. Menzies * Being Ts’elxwéyeqw is one of a growing genre of First Nations controlled and published reference books. Edited by UBC-trained…
Read more #516 Chilliwack to Ts’elxwéyeqw