Former Kingston Poet Laureate, Jason Heroux, has had published at least 20 collections of books and chapbooks, of which I believe I’ve read 10. His newest poetry collection is Unfinished Wilderness. I had a privilege of reading an Advanced Reading Copy. The book is at comfort with the unresolved, the non-logical and with process of …
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 …
From the very first lines of “to be,” the opening section Kaie Kellough’s Interposition, we find ourselves descending into a nightmare, moving steadily towards a stultifying existence characterized not by connection but by the spaces between us. That sense of being caught between worlds (that word “between” again) allows an overwhelming feeling of bifurcation to …
It’s very difficult to be gender-expansive in 2026. I won’t belabor the point when it’s not hard to find bad news. But one thing that’s brought me comfort in these trying times is the queer literature of the mid-late 20th century. Not because the content is particularly comforting, but because it is relatable. We are …
Full of a variety of works of art and poetry, slices of history, theories, and anecdotes of Trainor’s activism, all sections weave source material and personal experience back to the pulsing questions Trainor poses: what can artists do in the face of climate disaster, and more specifically how can activism be informed and impacted by ecopoetry?
My Mother Joins the Resistance is broader than her role as his mother, or than her as an individual, or memories.
One of the first things that strike is how novel the literal colour. Every title is blue and the endpapers are blue sky and cumulous clouds continuing from the cover.
Eric Schmaltz’s I Confess (Coach House, 2025) and Hajer Mirwali’s Revolutions (Talonbooks, 2025), offer the promise of revelation and the certainty of obfuscation, probing the ways that language simultaneously creates and elides truth.
This book, Tamil Terrains: poems, translations, reflections, edited by Nedra Rodrigo and Geetha Sukumaran (Trace Press, 2025), emerged from “Root, Branch, Driftwood,” which were Tamil literary translation workshops held on Zoom but rooted in Toronto.
These poems, both by design and content, are watercolours.
I’m surprised that the woman in these poems keeps trying, but she does: “It’s embarrassing to still hope / to be loved.”
As this suggests, for the author, family came with considerable pain, both psychological and physical.
Anyone who lived in Toronto in the late 80s/early 90s will know this place, will know what this time did to bodies trying to find love and acceptance, bodies willing to pay any price.
Attic Rain brought a refreshing authenticity that I didn’t want to part with. Sometimes you’d smile or hum in agreement with how relatable the poems are.
This is a particularly raw collection of poetry, I felt, the blank verse tumbling across the page in a cry to be read and felt.
© 2025| THE Miramichi Reader
