BOOK REVIEWS by JOHN NYMAN ACROSS TIME, STYLE, AND GENRE, VIA VANCOUVER ALEX LESLIE’S Vancouver for Beginners [Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2019, $12.99 – $21.00] MATTHEW WALSH’S These are not the potatoes of my youth [Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions • icehouse poetry, 2019, $19.95] bill bissett’s breth / th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu … Continue reading Book Reviews: Nyman / Leslie / Walsh / bissett
BOOK REVIEW by JIM NASON TORONTO REVIEWS VICTORIA QUEER POSITIONS, NAKED PROSE: THE VULNERABLE WE JOHN BARTON’S We Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs, Manifestos [Windsor: Palimpsest Press, 2019, SALE: $15.96] In 2007, along with Billeh Nickerson, John Barton edited Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets. At the time, standing with my … Continue reading Book Review: Jim Nason / John Barton
MESH AND MYTH Poems on Relationship: A suite of ten poems by ELIZABETH TESSIER Keepsakes Sonnet Here’s to the things we store yet in a chest once held dear by our beloved dead. What truths are folded with them in their rest? this ballast that we carry in our head. What once were anchor, … Continue reading Poetry Suite • 1 • by Elizabeth Tessier
MESH AND MYTH Poems on Relationship: A suite of ten poems by ELIZABETH TESSIER Cascades In your backyard in her last summer your mother began a story in the middle, starting with your grandfather rolling the barrow down narrow cobblestones. Made a man with a horse drawn cart and a great-windowed shop near Seven … Continue reading Poetry Suite • 2 • by Elizabeth Tessier
MESH AND MYTH Poems on Relationship: A suite of ten poems by ELIZABETH TESSIER The Jewelry Box for Edith This golden box opens with a shift of a button to release the tongue. It’s not the sort of box she would have bought for herself. Likely a gift from her daughter, the kind of … Continue reading Poetry Suite • 3 • by Elizabeth Tessier
MESH AND MYTH Poems on Relationship: A suite of ten poems by ELIZABETH TESSIER Losing Face Given the blank face her husband got all the right numbers but put them on the outside of the circle. He is himself with certain absences so he begrudges her reminders but forgets to take the pill. Faced … Continue reading Poetry Suite • 5 • by Elizabeth Tessier
MESH AND MYTH Poems on Relationship: A suite of ten poems by ELIZABETH TESSIER Meeting Church of paper cups, too small tables passwords and clasped hands blithe beauty of the barista. She who wields the burr and hiss handles the sacred grounds. The people, even those seated together seem poured into individual vessels and … Continue reading Poetry Suite • 4 • by Elizabeth Tessier
BOOK REVIEWS by GARY BARWIN FOLKTALES, TREES AND EMPTY BOWLS: HAMILTON REVIEWS NEW BRUNSWICK MATTHEW GWATHMEY’S Our Latest in Folktales [Brick Books, 2019, $20.00] SANDRA BUNTING’S Identified in Trees [Marram Press, 2015, $14.99] M. TRAVIS LANE’S A Tent, A Lantern, An Empty Bowl [Palimpsest Press, 2019, SALE: $15.16] Matthew Gwathmey’s first book, Our Latest in … Continue reading Book Reviews: Barwin / Gwathmey / Bunting / M. Travis Lane
Everybody In (*a sonnet to Isolation* courtesy of covid-19) by LEO DRAGTOE Everybody In (*a sonnet to Isolation* courtesy of covid-19) When all the rhythm of the crooked day is mangled by contagious circumstance when all the broken minutes fade away and moments melt together in a trance- of solitude and singleness and space … Continue reading covid-19 • Poetry by Leo Dragtoe
TWO POEMS by LEO DRAGTOE Don’t Go Out across the bridge when darkness comes to meet you erasing day to leave no trace of light- sometimes it feels like life knows how to cheat you sometimes it seems tomorrow’s out of sight don’t let the parlor jive begin to swamp you don’t kill your … Continue reading Poetry • by Leo Dragtoe
