Pilgrimages by Matthew Rettino
The language and structure of the poems are controlled with clarity, precision, and word economy.
Chapbook
we astronauts by Pearl Pirie
More observational than confessional, Pirie writes not from the margins, but from the centre of her own life. This is a radical act—to narrate one’s interiority and place it before the world without apology.
Birdology by Carolyne Van Der Meer
Birdology, Carolyne Van Der Meer’s most recent chapbook, offers an unflinching meditation on mortality and how our relationships with our parents evolve as we age, become more vulnerable, and eventually leave one another. This beautifully sequenced collection of tender poems and slender essays moves through what the author calls a “spell of grief,” accompanied by …
Lives of Dead Poets by Penn Kemp
This chapbook is a precious glimpse into an extraordinary time and a special group of writers
a disobedient gathering: poems for plants who can’t stay put by Katherine Barrett
The poems have a casual swagger and impish play with their subjects.
Nightstand: Leafing through a little darkness by Berdene Owen
Nightstand is a quirky chapbook, but one that works very well, The irreverence sheds light on the darkness Owen is exploring.
Poems for Burning by Spencer Folkins
As children, we’ve all been told not to play with matches, but Spencer Folkins can’t seem to resist the lure of starting little fires in his debut chapbook.
Girl Dinner by Jamie Kitts
There’s something just so nice about a new chapbook with a fun cover. Girl Dinner by Jamie Kitts, a collection of poems largely focused on food and the ways it connects to different ways of being and experiences, has a cover illustrated by New Brunswick artist Dawn Mockler.
Busy Secret by Micah Ballard
Micah Ballard’s latest chapbook Busy Secret is a quippy, somewhat resigned meditation on the liminal spaces between life and death, and wealth and work.
Permutations by Paula Turcotte
Permutations by Paula Turcotte is a high energy chapbook of the urban depressed and stressed. It is fresh and punchy as well as comic at times.
Fifty-Two Lines About Henry by Cary Fagan
Although Henry contemplates dancing to calm an enraged bear, orders enough sardines to fill two bedrooms – I hope they’re canned – and writes an 861-page chapter to a novel, his unlikely battles remain rooted in a world well-recognized where neighbours are suspicious, dinner parties are taxing, and things learned at school are revealed to be alternately fateful (the sousaphone, surprisingly) and superfluous (trigonometry).
Groping in the Daylight: poems by Augusta Wynde
The language is striking and fresh in reach without being self-important, adding humour to the poetic palette such as in “Bout” (p. 8) which you’ll have to buy to see— no spoilers on that.
Stranger in a Strange Land: I Imagine My Brother as an Island by Morris Bailey
A shimmer of vulnerability permeates the poems in Montreal poet Morris Bailey’s debut chapbook I Imagine My Brother as an Island.
