Perfect Weather by Jamella Hagen | The Miramichi Reader

To pick up a new volume of poetry from Gaspereau Press is always a gift, because not only does the author write with such care inside the pages, the paper and type were selected with a similar level of care and dedication. I work with university students, and there’s an increasing desire from them to have print, to have analog, and to have things they can touch. A Gaspereau book will always meet the expectations of joy for holding it. And this one, Perfect Weather by Jamella Hagen, is a wonderful outdoors romp, with poem after poem of beautiful trips through nature, examining opposites, and learning to forgive all kinds of things and all kind of people, including herself.

Hagen excavates her past for material to turn into verse in Perfect Weather, but she also meets the current moment. “Ode to the Vancouver Olympics,” reaches into the Canadian collective of memory of hosting the Olympics in 2010, but it also brings us back to the geopolitical tension that are dominating our news and wallets:

It’s just a game, we tell ourselves,
and looking back, Vancouver too,
a bit of a sports match in its own right –
so much beauty and theatrics. But in this
moment, broken down and 175 km from home,
score tied up, we hold our breath, toss back
our pints of spruce tip beer, and take the win.

The titles of the poems in this collection were ones where a lot of them tend to take on more complex meaning as the full picture of the poem emerges. So many of them I had to revisit after finishing the poem they belonged to, reading them with new understanding after seeing the whole pictures Hagen has created. They were clever as well, and it was a fun habit I got into while reading this collection.

“Everything is Alright, and It’s Going to Be Okay” is the poem that has sat with me ever since I finished it. Hagen writes of the way your most vulnerable thoughts can interrupt the day of normal, mundane chores. Reporting of the everyday details they notice while they do their chores, the narrator of the poem tosses a far more serious question at us as they move about the house, cleaning, maintain, and noting.

…A tiny cold wind blows
through the electrical sockets
on only the frostiest days.
What does it mean to love yourself?

Revisiting my notes and the book to write this review, I was struck by just how much I enjoyed this. Pure enjoyment and delight while reading! Poetry can be so many things, but I’ll admit it’s not always the most pure form of enjoyment for me. Perfect Weather has so many emotions tucked into its verse, but it was also a really nice experience.

Jamella Hagen is the author of two poetry collections, Perfect Weather (Gaspereau Press, 2026) and Kerosene (Nightwood Editions, 2011). Her poetry has won The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry. Originally from Hazelton, BC, she currently lives with her son, Rowan, on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council in Whitehorse, Yukon.

She has served as an Executive Editor of PRISM international, a guest editor for The Northern Review, and a past coordinator of the Whitehorse Poetry Festival. She is a current host of the Northern Stories Reading Series at Yukon University and an Affiliate Poetry Editor with the Alaska Quarterly Review.

She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Yukon University. Recent work has appeared in Canadian Literature and The Globe and Mail in Canada, and in Calyx and Ploughshares in the US.

Publisher: Gaspereau Press (April 10, 2026)
Paperback | 88 pages
ISBN: 9781554472833

Alison Manley

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Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.