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.
Chapbooks
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 …
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.
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.
Warp and Weft by Carla Stein
I was delighted to receive Carla’s latest, Warp and Weft, a beautifully stitched chapbook of poems and paintings.
“The Poetry Game” Yields Intriguing Results: Frog Pond Review Issue 4, Edited by Misha Solomon
This brief collection offers some captivating images.
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.
Citronella by Loch Baillie
What better way to pen a dreamy and summer-y queer coming-of-age chapbook than using scent’s strong connection to memory? Baillie’s debut chapbook title, like his poems, is successful in both brevity and coaxing out the odours of summer (see: ambrosia, perennials, chlorinated, bug spray, bergamot, pine, hydrangeas, fruit). This chapbook offers a sort of mental …
