Interactive Press | 2016 | 78 pages | $18.00 | Purchase online Review by Sarah-Jean Krahn — Glimpsing the Face of the Poet through The Face of the Other As a scholar in post-colonial theory and literature, Clara A. B. Joseph is fiercely aware of the forced foreignness of the … [click for more]
Review
NEW Review Page posts
REVIEW: BARBARIC CULTURAL PRACTICE | BY PENN KEMP
Quattro Books | October 2016 | $18.00 | Purchase online Review by Kate Rogers — The title of Penn Kemp’s most recent poetry collection reflects her urgent activist response to government announcements she thought could undermine Canadian diversity. As they campaigned to hold onto power in 2015, the Harper Conservatives … [click for more]
REVIEW: BIG MEDICINE COMES TO ERIE | BY D.A. LOCKHART
Black Moss Press | 84 pages | $17.00 | October 2016 | Purchase online Review by Kim Fahner — D.A. Lockhart’s first collection of poems, published under the umbrella of Black Moss’s “First Lines” poetry series, evokes a sense of place and history that reflects the landscape of southwestern Ontario. … [click for more]
REVIEW: LOOKING FOR LIGHT | BY SUSAN IOANNOU
Hidden Brook Press | 83 pages | April 2016 | $19.95 | Purchase online Review by John B. Lee __ Riddle Me This: Hypophora and the question as a device is the poetry of Susan Ioannou For his part, People’s Poet Chris Faiers writes in praise of Susan Ioannou in … [click for more]
REVIEW: THE STONE MASON’S NOTEBOOK | BY CARMELO MILITANO
Ekstasis Editions | 66 pages | 2016 | $23.95 | Purchase online Review by Bianca Lakoseljac — If Carmelo Militano fans have been longing for a new book of poems, The Stone Mason’s Notebook, Militano’s fifth collection, is a welcome gift of thoughtful lyrical exploration of love, of human existence, … [click for more]
REVIEW: ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS | BY PHOEBE WANG
>>From The Wilds, week 18; review by Terry Abrahams Bodies are difficult. Bodies of work often more so. Phoebe Wang’s debut collection of poetry follows several bodies—her own, her family members’, plants, animals, rivers, lakes, buildings—and asks them all a pertinent question: what does it mean to be admitted? Welcomed? … [click for more]
REVIEW: THE WITCH OF THE INNER WOOD | BY M. TRAVIS LANE
Edited by Shane Neilson | icehouse poetry / Goose Lane Editions | 377 pages | October 2016 | $40.00 | Purchase online Review by Susan Ioannou — To do justice to this 377-page collection of M. Travis Lane’s long poems would take a PhD thesis. As simply a poet, not … [click for more]
REVIEW: THE WAKING COMES LATE | BY STEVEN HEIGHTON
>>From Arc Poetry Magazine, Chris Doda reviews Steven Heighton’s The Waking Comes Late (shortlisted for the 2017 Raymond Souster Award) House of Anansi Press | $19.95 | 128 pages | purchase online In these excellent poems, Heighton shows how technical mastery can merge with acutely relevant subject matter to great … [click for more]
REVIEW: OTOLITH | BY EMILY NILSEN
>>From the Hamilton Review of Books, Canisia Lubrin reviews Emily Nilsen’s Otolith Icehouse Poetry / Goose Lane Editions | $19.95 | 96 pages | purchase online Otolith, Emily Nilsen’s new pastoral, wakes deep in the ear and channels the reader through the speaker’s multifarious experiences of grief, loss, the burden … [click for more]
REVIEW: BAD IDEAS | BY MICHAEL V. SMITH
>>From a review published in The Province: Mark Abbot reviews Michael V. Smith’s new poetry collection, Bad Ideas. Nightwood Editions | $18.95 | 96 pages | purchase online Michael V. Smith is a multi-talented novelist, poet and performance artist whose work has always been expressive and honest. His first poetry … [click for more]
REVIEW: ON NOT LOSING MY FATHER’S ASHES IN THE FLOOD | BY RICHARD HARRISON
Buckrider Books | 84 pages | $18.00 | Purchase online Review by Sharon Berg — Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people. –Spenser Johnson Richard Harrison has written an honest, poetic journal of his search for meaning during the aftermath from … [click for more]
REVIEW: FOREIGN SKIN | BY KATE ROGERS
Aeolus House | 84 pages | $20.00 | Purchase online Review by John Oughton — This is Kate Rogers’ third book, preceded by City of Stairs and Painting the Borrowed House. In this collection, her double(d) identity as a Canadian teaching at a community college in Hong Kong informs the writing. In a hectic, entrepreneurial … [click for more]
REVIEW: SERPENTINE LOOP | ELEE KRALJII GARDINER
Anvil Press | 104 pages | 2016 | $18.00 | Purchase online “Remembered Symmetris” — review by Aaron Boothby, excerpted from original publication on Debutantes. — So much swings on the hinge of what is remembered without being often thought of. To encounter a book titled Serpentine Loop, icy – riverine … [click for more]
REVIEW: LOOK AT HER | BY VANESSA SHIELDS
Black Moss Press | 106 pages | October 2016 | Purchase online Review by Ronnie R. Brown — In this, Shields’s second collection of poetry (she has also written a memoir and edited an anthology), the focus is solidly on women. It is Shields’ aim to examine, explain and investigate … [click for more]
REVIEW: CARIBOU RUN | BY RICHARD KELLY KEMICK
icehouse poetry / Goose Lane Editions | 96 pages | March 2016 | $19.95 | Purchase online Review by H. H. Brown — Richard Kelly Kemick’s poetry collection Caribou Run surprises and delights. First, the tawny book cover itself, designed by Chris Tompkins, has concentric irises of caribou circling outward from a spare bone-white … [click for more]
CHAPBOOK REVIEW: BRIAN PURDY’S BLACK INK: PORTRAITS
April 2016 | Big Pond Rumours | 24 pages review by Bianca Lakoseljac — Brian Purdy’s Black Ink: Portraits is an eclectic collection of whimsical poems, each composition a moment in life. The poem “Goddess Sculpture, Greek, circa 540 BC” is a stirring contemplation of the liaison between the artist … [click for more]
REVIEW: A HOUSECOAT REMAINS | BY TINA BIELLO
Guernica Editions | 106 pages | Fall 2015 | $20.00 | Purchase online Review by Vanessa Shields — What happens to a family when aging and disease become its main storyline? In an attempt to keep the heart and mind connected, memories become medicine and hope sews them together. Tina Biello’s A Housecoat … [click for more]
REVIEW: WAITING ROOM | BY JENNIFER ZILM
BookThug | 104 pages | April 2016 | $18.00 | Purchase online Review by rob mclennan, originally published in the Small Press Book Review — MUSE IN AUGUST Her muse for poetry is an old woman. She declares this on an island in the wilderness—it doesn’t matter where as long as it’s either … [click for more]
REVIEW: TRANSMITTER AND RECEIVER | BY RAOUL FERNANDES
Nightwood Editions | 96 pages | March 2015 | $18.95 | Purchase online Review by Clay Everest — Raoul Fernandes’s debut collection Transmitter and Receiver by Nightwood Editions is an amazing collection that explores intimacy and interconnectedness. The poems are fragments, bits that are collected and re-purposed by Fernandes, like the friend from … [click for more]
REVIEW: OBSERVING THE MOON | BY SNEHA MADHAVAN-REESE
Hagios Press | 88 pages | November 2015 | $17.95 | Purchase online Review by Ayaz Pirani — In Observing the Moon Sneha Madhavan-Reese offers plain-speech poems unruffled by pretence. Gratuitous poetic moves are at a minimum in this tender, accessible book that keeps getting warmer in your hands. The first stanza of … [click for more]
REVIEW: A JAR OF FIREFLIES | BY JOSIE DI SCIASCIO-ANDREWS
Mosaic Press | 108 pages | September 2015 | $15.95 | Purchase online Review by Debbie Okun Hill, originally published in Verse Afire and on Debbie Okun Hill’s blog. — Canadian poet Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews collects memories like she collects sea glass along the shore. It’s her quiet polishing of word gems that first … [click for more]
REVIEW: A MORE PERFECT [ | BY JIMMY MCINNES
BookThug | 124 pages | April 2015 | $18.00 | Purchase online Review by William Kemp, originally published in issue 7 of (parenthetical). — Jimmy McInnes’s A More Perfect [ is the type of book of poetry that I’m secretly jealous of. It’s the type of book of poetry I wish … [click for more]
CALL FOR REVIEWS
As part of our ongoing efforts to promote and engage poets and poetry across Canada, the League of Canadian Poets is hoping to create a reviews series hosted here on our Community page. In time, we would like to develop a dedicated network of writers and reviewers who want to … [click for more]
REVIEW: TWENTY POEMS THAT COULD SAVE AMERICA | TONY HOAGLAND
Graywolf Press | November 2014 | $16.00 | Purchase online Review by Colin Morton — Don’t be misled by the title. Author Tony Hoagland doesn’t make unrealistic claims for the power of poetry to save, nor is it exclusively for or about Americans. Among the poems unpacked in these entertaining … [click for more]
REVIEW: MARLENE DIETRICH’S EYES | BY ISABELLA COLALILLO-KATZ
Ekstasis Editions | October 2014 | 128 pages | $23.95 | Purchase online Review by Josie Di-Sciascio-Andrews — A child’s wide eyed beauty transforms into a woman’s gaze brimming with wonder. Innocence and artistic sensibility, tempered by life and the myriad waves of experience, chisel away at the superfluous skin of … [click for more]