SOME LEAVES Gary Barwin and rob mclennan above/ground press, 2020 In a collection with a title that rings Whitmanian, seasoned collaborators with over 50 books published between them, rob mclennan and Gary Barwin offer five brief pages of poetry that come closer to feeling very Bradburian, examining the the collision of nature and the technology […]
NOTHING YOU BUILD HERE, BELONGS HERE by Sara Cahill Marron | Review by Jonathan Harrington
Nothing You Build Here, Belongs Here Sara Cahill Marron Kelsay Books, 2021 The title of this book of poetry by Sara Cahill Marron suggests not just the provisional nature of our gig-economy servitude and the impermanence of late-stage capitalism where everything can be swept away in a moment, but also the alienation of contemporary urban […]
THE MIGRANT STATES by Indran Amirthanayagam | Review by Jonathan Harrington
THE MIGRANT STATES Indran Amirthanayagam Hanging Loose Press, 2020 Indran Amirthanayagam has published seventeen books of poetry and recorded two albums with Haitian musicians. He is both a US diplomat and a citizen of the world who writes poetry in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, French and Portuguese. From the rousing preface to the final poem […]
WHERE BEAUTY SURVIVED: AN AFRICADIAN MEMOIR by George Elliott Clarke | Review by Giovanna Riccio
WHERE BEAUTY SURVIVED: AN AFRICADIAN MEMOIR George Elliott Clarke Knopf, 2021 Renowned poet George Elliott Clarke begins each of his books of poetry with an epigraph on beauty; fittingly, then, the title of his latest book is Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir. In keeping with the former Parliamentary Poet Laureate’s lifelong preoccupation with the […]
THE ELEVENTH HOUR by Carolyn Marie Souaid | Review by Steve Luxton
The Eleventh Hour Carolyn Marie Souaid Ekstasis Editions, 2021 Both the title of Carolyn Marie Souaid’s latest collection of poetry and the book’s cover graphic—the former warning that time has all but run out, the latter depicting a burnt orange moon overhanging shadowy, monolithic industrial buildings—threaten the reader with a premonitory, possibly dispiriting literary experience. […]
A NONPARTISAN CONVERSATION WITH GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE | Interview by Henry Kronk
A NONPARTISAN CONVERSATION WITH GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE Interview by Henry Kronk Henry Kronk: You were just elected [or, as I should have said, appointed] to be the parliamentary poet laureate. Congratulations, by the way. George Elliott Clarke: Thank you, Henry. Merci beaucoup. HK: Would you have thought twice about [accepting] that appointment had Stephen Harper’s […]
LILAC PAINTED WALLS AND BLACK FABRIC: A CONVERSATION WITH MONICA MCCLURE | INTERVIEW BY JAY WINSTON RITCHIE
LILAC PAINTED WALLS AND BLACK FABRIC: A CONVERSATION WITH MONICA MCCLURE | INTERVIEW BY JAY WINSTON RITCHIE
Jay Winston Ritchie: When did you start writing poetry?
Monica McClure: I always wrote poetry …. I remember covering my lilacpainted walls one day with black fabric and writing very disparate poems on the walls. One was an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem that was about the death of a friend, and not accepting that death. I loved the brazenness of it. It goes: “You have gone to feed the roses so elegant and curled but[…]ONE THING — THEN ANOTHER by Claire Kelly | Review by Bill Neumire
ONE THING — THEN ANOTHER by Claire Kelly Review by Bill Neumire From poor to rich, small town to big city, East to West, Fredericton to Edmonton, Claire Kelly’s second full-length poetry collection, One Thing – Then Another, from ECW Press, travels Canada’s vast landmass in a restless search for settlement. Kelly, author of Maunder […]
MOTEL OF THE OPPOSABLE THUMBS by Stuart Ross | Review by Bill Neumire
MOTEL OF THE OPPOSABLE THUMBS by Stuart Ross Review by Bill Neumire A replete, grassroots career precedes Stuart Ross’ most recent book of poems, Motel of the Opposable Thumbs, out from Anvil Press. Ross, who first published at age sixteen, has been a player in the Canadian literary scene since the ‘70s. Set in five […]