Reviewed by Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews Thimbles by Vanessa Shields (Palimpsest Press, 2021)  In poetry, everything has a deeper meaning. A thimble as a mythopoetic symbol evokes a sense of immunity and self-protection against the pain and bloodletting of life’s allegorical needles. It is a shield against pain. Interestingly,  the poet’s last name is Shields, giving…

Reviewed by Philomene Kocher Haiku in Canada: History, Poetry, Memoir by Terry Ann Carter. Victoria, BC: Ekstasis Editions, 2020. 170 pp. Rarely do books appear that embody a decade’s worth of dedication. And perhaps it is also true, that each book that is published represents that author’s whole life. Haiku in Canada does both: it is…

Reviewed by Pearl Pirie Locked in Different Alphabets by Doris Fiszer (Silver Bow Publishing, 2020) I’ve had the privilege of seeing some of these poems as they developed since Fiszer and I overlapped for a time in the same writing group. I’ve read some iterations of the poems in her chapbooks The Binders (Tree Press,…

Reviewed by Pearl Pirie The Muse Sings by Dennis Cooley (At Bay Press, 2020) I’ve long admired the playfulness of Dennis Cooley. The Muse Sings is his 21st book. His abcedarium (University of Alberta Press, 2014) has a freewheeling sort of swirl of concrete poetry and it continues in this new collection; “is the letter…

Reviewed by Chantel Lavoie Nothing You Can Carry by Susan Alexander (Thistledown Press, 2020) The title hints at the spiritual grappling with the material in Susan Alexander’s new collection, Nothing You Can Carry. It also relies on the important verbs in that phrase: is that which cannot be carried valuable because it is beyond the…

Reviewed by Patricia Keeney Blood Rises by David Haskins (Guernica Editions. 2020) At the breathless top of the world along the arduous Inka trail, “Condor, oldest of all flying creatures” brought the sun on his back to banish darkness and fear. David Haskins’ transforming late life ascent into Machu Picchu takes us to where “[t]he…

Reviewed by Kamal Parmar sfumato by David Stones (Blue Moon Publishing, 2021) In the book sfumato, the poet David Stones, writes poems that are very powerful and precise, reflecting on things that are often unnoticed. Each poem is a masterpiece so thought provoking  and an in-depth study of life’s, happy as well as tragic situations.…

Reviewed by Louise Carson Windfor by Allan Briesmaster, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, 2021 As I was curious about the origin of the title of the book, I flipped ahead to the title poem, which lies roughly at the book’s half way point. This is what I found: a poem full of feeling, a love poem, a…

Reviewed by Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews Sabyasachi Nag. Uncharted. Toronto, Ontario: Mansfield Press, 2020. Whether in the animal kingdom or amongst humans as a metaphorical prodigy, a white tiger is a rare, ferocious wonder, born only once in a blue moon or a century. Such is the pervasive impression that lingers in us after reading Sabyasachi…

Reviewed by John Robert Colombo Very seldom these days do avid and adventurous readers come across a volume that meets both needs: the need “to delight and instruct” (Sir Philip Sidney’s requirements for poetry) as well as the modern collector’s joy in finding a book that is not only a pleasure in design and materials…