News & Extras
The Other Side of Ourselves by Rob Taylor
Oct 24, 2012
Rob Taylor’s debut collection, The Other Side of Ourselves – which in an earlier version won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize for an unpublished poetry manuscript – shows considerable talent and imagination. Here is a poet who likes to play with a variety of traditional verse forms as applied to free verse: ghazals, sonnets, haiku, […]
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At the Gates of the Theme Park by Peter Norman
Oct 24, 2012
Peter Norman’s debut poetry collection covers a lot of ground without staking out any particular section as its very own. Norman rhymes a bit, messes with perspectives, fiddles with techniques, primps a tendency to lists and catalogues, and it all sounds refreshing and at ease. The writing is not laboured and only occasionally over-written.
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A Dark Boat by Patrick Friesen
Oct 24, 2012
During a taping of the radio show Speaking of Poets, Patrick Friesen and I were discussing the trip he took to Spain in 2010, following an earlier one to both Spain and Portugal in 2005. Patrick, who doesn’t appear to do anything in half measures, was delighting me with his discussion of Portuguese fado music. […]
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Louis: The Heretic Poems by Gregory Scofield
Oct 24, 2012
Finally, a Western Canadian, a Métis, writing about the mythic Western Canadian hero Louis Riel, whose first language was French and who was raised a devout Catholic. Father of Confederation for Manitoba, elected to parliament three times but unable to take his seat in Ottawa because of the warrant out for his arrest. Exiled, begged […]
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The Girl in the Wall by Alison Preston
Oct 24, 2012
According to author Alison Preston, strange things happen even in quiet suburbs. In fact, her sixth novel spins such a tale. Winner of the 2012 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, the book recounts the story of an eccentric young woman and an unsolved murder in Norwood Flats, a Winnipeg neighbourhood.
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Valery the Great by Elaine McCluskey
Oct 24, 2012
It may say something about Canada and Canadians that one of our canonical twentieth-century novels was called Beautiful Losers. And perhaps, in light of the 2012 Olympics, it’s instructive that as a nation we’ve focused so much attention on a soccer team that was, arguably, cheated out of a gold medal game, and a pair of […]
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