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? Allowed space within spaces with…

Read 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 an academic, to attempt such…

Read More

FRESH VOICES: SUE SORENSEN, CAROL STEEL, CAROL STEPHEN

Welcome to the third edition of Fresh Voices, a project from and for the League’s associate members. The League’s associate members are talented poets who are writing and publishing poetry on their way to becoming established professional poets in the Canadian literary community. We are excited to be taking this opportunity to showcase the work…

Read 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 effect. In fact, when it…

Read 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 of memory, us — the…

Read 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 collection, What You Can’t Have…

Read More

NPM17: THAT’S A WRAP

Every year it feels like there are more and more exciting goings-on for National Poetry Month, and 30 days is just not enough time to celebrate them all! Here are a few highlights from April, including awards announcements, fun articles about the benefits of reading poetry, and much more! If you ran a NPM campaign…

Read More

POETS RESIST: NPM ON ALU, FINAL STRETCH

This content has been provided by All Lit Up, an online bookstore and blog run by the Literary Press Group for readers of emerging, quirky, and unabashedly Canadian literature by some of Canada’s finest independent publishers. One final, tremendous thanks to the great folks over at All Lit Up who have been curating and sharing…

Read More

NPM AND BEYOND: RECOMMENDATIONS

And just like that, National Poetry Month is nearly over — our hearts are heavy, and our to-read lists grew as much as they shrank this April. In our last NPM and Beyond! blog post, we wanted to chat with some of our shortlisted authors about their reading habits and recommendations. Find out what books…

Read More