Reviewed by Renée M. Sgroi Gianna Patriarca’s latest poetry collection, To the Men Who Write Goodbye Letters (Inanna, 2020) balances the universal and the specific. Using feminist and multilingual lenses, Patriarca’s poems are, like the stones she has written about in a previous poetry collection, unapologetically hard-edged, honest, and as a result absolutely compelling. The…

Review by Kate Marshall Flaherty first published in Verse Afire, January 2021. The Dance Between: Poems About Women by Susan Ioannou Opal Editions, pp. 72 paper ISBN 978-0-920835-54-8, 2019 eBook eISBN 978-0-920835-55-5, 2021 The Dance Between is a suite of spare and striking poems about women, in various stages of life’s rhythms. Susan Ioannou’s epigram…

Reviewed by Ronnie R. Brown first published in Verse Afire, January 2020. For the Love of Lazaros by Susan Ioannou Opal Editions, 54 pp. paper ISBN 978-0-920835-53-1, 2019 eBook eISBN 978-0-920835-57-9, 2021 Susan Ioannou is a name very familiar to readers of all aspects of Canadian Writing—children’s literature, fiction, non-fiction, reviewing and, of course, poetry.…

Reviewed by Jeevan Bhagwat In his debut poetry collection, The Other Life (Mosaic Press, 2021), Patrick Conners takes us on an introspective journey that seeks to find meaning and purpose in the sometimes mundane aspects of everyday life. Following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Al Purdy and Milton Acorn, these poems unfold in…

Reviewed by Katerina Fretwell A Near Memoir: New Poems, Penn Kemp’s elegant chapbook, features her father’s portrait of her at 14 on the cover. Photos and art invite the reader into family dynamics. Fitting for a memoir, Kemp’s poetry expands Heidegger’s perception that “nearness slows the future’s approach, creating room for a present to develop…

Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon “I have compounded another thingamajig,” exclaims Phil Hall partway through his recent collection, Niagara & Government (Pedlar Press, 2020). The thingamajig in question is a scavenged toy compass that Hall has fit inside a bottle cap, to his great satisfaction. But it also stands in for Hall’s overall approach to writing:…

Reviewed by Louise Carson We know right away after reading the first poem of In the Shadow of Vimy that the book is not going to be a paean to war. Despite its innocuous title – ‘Picking up Pies at St. John’s Anglican’ – the poem plunges the reader into the poet’s main theme: war…

Reviewed by Kate Rogers The poems in Khashayar Mohammadi’s new poetry collection, Me, You, Then Snow, skillfully evoke the surreal nature of everyday life as the young narrator searches for self-understanding in our age of profound uncertainty. The poems explore the evolving self without self-centeredness. An epigraph from Khurdish-Iranian poet and actor Hossein Panahi sets…

reviewed by Pat Connors There are certain canonical books to which I always return, as they have an almost scriptural appeal to me. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s passing led me to read parts of Poetry as Insurgent Art for at least the twentieth time. Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960-70 (edited by Eli Mandel) is my favourite snapshot…