ISBN-10: 0973864591
ISBN-13: 9780973864595
Price: $14.95
Pub Date: 2007

In Fraser Sutherland’s latest collection of poems, Manual for Emigrants, all the myriad aspects of exile and belonging are explored in ways both witty and moving.

The voices of the outsider and the voices of those who believe they belong are juxtaposed in an impassioned dialogue that resists conclusion.

Click for an excerpt from Manual for Emigrants.

Fraser Sutherland has made a practice of hanging around people whose first language isn’t his own, and are otherwise as different as possible from him. Which is surprising, or maybe isn’t, because he is descended from an unbroken line of Highland Scots, was born in northern Nova Scotia, and has lived in Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, and Nelson, B.C. He now resides in Toronto.

ISBN-10: 0973864508
ISBN-13: 9780973864502
Price: $12.95
Pub Date: 2007

The poetry in Iron-on Constellations defiantly explores the beauty and complexity of the everyday.

Emily Pohl-Weary sifts through the surface dirt, grime and debris of the city to reveal the isolation, illness, love and sexuality lurking beneath. Through short,confident bursts that act like graffiti on an alley wall, her poems reveal hidden layers of emotion and political motivation.

Click for an excerpt from Iron-on Constellations.

Emily Pohl-Weary‘s most recent novel is Strange Times at Western High (Annick Press), a young adult mystery featuring misfit Natalie Fuentes, who solves a crime in her high school. Like the character Natalie, Pohl-Weary’s first publications were in self-published zines titled things like We Have Lives, This City of Faces and Throat Flower.

She went to become a co-editor of Broken Pencil, the guide to zines and independent arts, and eventually to publish her own magazine, Kiss Machine. During Kiss Machine‘s eight-and-a-half year run, it also published an award-winning line of comics by Canadian women writers and artists.

Her first book was the life story of gender-bending science fiction author Judith Merril, Better to Have Loved (Between the Lines). Merril was Pohl-Weary’s grandmother, and she had started the book prior to her death. Pohl-Weary completed it posthumously in the same voice. It won a Hugo Award and was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award.

Selections from her critically acclaimed anthology of writing about female superheroes Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks (Sumach Press) was an opportunity for 34 writers to analyse and redefine the notion of powerful women. The year it launched, contributors toured 17 cities across North America, doing readings from the book and running superhero makeovers on the audience.

Her novel A Girl Like Sugar (McGilligan Books) is the coming-of-age tale of a girl who’s haunted by her dead rock star boyfriend. Her poetry collection, Iron-on Constellations (Tightrope Books), explores the illness, love and isolation hidden beneath busy urban life. Video artists and stop-motion animators have adapted several of the poems.

Pohl-Weary lives in Toronto with her husband, technology and media analyst Jesse Hirsh. She’s currently working on a new novel, a film script, and is completing a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia.

ISBN-10: 0978335147
ISBN-13: 9780978335144
Price: $21.95
Pub Date: 2008

The best of the past five years of readers from across Canada at the renowned IV Lounge Reading Series in Toronto.

Grab your martini, the I.V. Lounge is Toronto’s coziest place to kick back and listen to fiction or poetry. For ten years, every other Friday night, thats exactly what has happened at the I.V. Lounge reading series, as fiction writers read alongside poets, emerging talent next to established talent, and local writers with those passing through town.

I.V. Lounge Nights gathers twenty-nine talented writers together to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the series, and relaxing with literature on a Friday night.

Click to read an excerpt from I.V. Lounge Nights.

Featuring work from Steve McOrmond, Alexandra Leggat, Carmine Starnino, Shaun Smith, Evie Christie, Michael Bryson, Rob Winger, Matthew J Trafford, David Livingstone Clink, Alayna Munce, Leigh Kotsilidis, Heather J Wood, Matthew Tierney, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Michael V Smith, Andrew Daley, Sharon McCartney, Goran Simic, Emily Shultz, Catherine Graham, Moez Surani, Molly Peacock, Jessica Westhead, Sue Sinclair, Ray Hsu, James Grainger, Dani Couture, Stacey May Fowles, and Karen Solie.

Myna Wallin is an author and editor in Toronto. She is also an organizer and host of the Art Bar Poetry Series. Her first poetry collection was A Thousand Profane Pieces (Tightrope Books, 2006), and her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including The Algonquin Square Table Anthology, Contemporary Verse 2, Existere, Eye Weekly, Kiss Machine, Literary Review of Canada, Matrix, Misunderstandings Magazine, Nod, Surface and Symbol, Taddle Creek, and Word: Canada’s Magazine for Readers and Writers.

Alex Boyd was born in Toronto. He writes poems, fiction, reviews and essays, and has had work published in magazines and newspapers such as Taddle Creek, dig, Books in Canada, The Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire and on various websites such as The Danforth Review. His personal site is alexboyd.com. He is co-editor of Northern Poetry Review, a site for poetry reviews, essays, and articles. His first full-length book of poems, Making Bones Walk, is new from Luna Publications.

ISBN-10: 0978335112
ISBN-13:9780978335113
Price:$14.95
Pub Date: 2008

Eating Fruit out of Season is a book that celebrates the natural world of frogs, bumble bees, crickets, ravens, snowy owls, and endless cottage roads, but also the man-made world of museums, broken VCRs, junk mail grocery stores, a high school cafeteria, and bus platforms.

This is a first book for poet David Clink, spanning 12 years of writing covering 40 years of experience, as the author shares with the reader his remembrances of falling out of a tree, days at the cottage, falling in and out of love, and the death of his father.

In employing humour and surreal elements, the poems take place in the real world made new again. The four sections in the book comprise: childhood and youth; the development of self and interpersonal relationships; maturity, loss, and the fall from a height that has been acheived; and finally, the poet’s relationship with his father, up to, including and after his father’s death.

The poems in this debut collection use various poetic forms, including free verse, prose poems, ghazals, and a new poetic form the author has invented called a “Title Poem.”

Click to read an excerpt from Eating Fruit Out of Season.

David Clink is the Artistic Director of the Rowers Pub Reading Series, and is a former Artistic Director of the Art Bar Poetry Series. He has been writing and selling poetry since 1995, and is the author of 5 poetry chapbooks and the editor of 7 others. He is a consultant with the Heart of a Poet TV show, and is co-publisher of believe your own press, a poetry chapbook publisher. He is webmaster of poetrymachine.com, a resource for writers. His poetry has been published in Canada, the United States and Europe, including Analog; The Antigonish Review; Asimov’s Science Fiction; Cicada; The Dalhousie Review; Descant, The Fiddlehead; Grain Magazine, The Literary Review of Canada; On Spec, and The Prairie Journal.

ISBN-10: 1926639065
ISBN-13: 9781926639062
Price: $14.95
Pub Date: Fall 2009

Poems that are like incantations, love spells spoken in a young lyrical voice.

These poems are an existential exploration of love and mortality via fairytales and nature.

Travelling freely among the shattered confines of identity and gender, travel and environment, the dreamlike narrative unfolds in lyric language, telling of love lost and found, and mythologies that inform the journey with passages in the rhythm of fairytales.

Click to read an excerpt from Contents of a Mermaid’s Purse.

Phoebe Tsang was born in Hong Kong, grew up in England and currently resides in Canada. She is the author of the poetry collection Contents of a Mermaid’s Purse (Tightrope Books), due to be launched 05 November 2009. Phoebe’s poetry can be found in the anthologies Garden Variety (Quattro Books) and Not a Muse (Haven Books). Journal credits include Asia Literary Review (Hong Kong), Atlas02 (UK & India), Brand (UK), Room and  Freefall (Canada). Her chapbooks are Solitaires (Lyricalmyrical Press, 2006) and To Kiss the Ground (Press On! 2007). A professional violinist, she is a multi-genre artist who holds a BSc in Architecture from the University of London.

ISBN-10: 1926639006
ISBN-13: 9781926639000
Price: $14.95
Pub Date: Fall 2009

The poems in Bone Dream are darkly sensuous, capturing the unspoken moments of life through images firmly grounded in the body and the material world.

Relationships, family and death are explored at times through the medium of a dancers body, and at other times through the everyday artifacts we find around us. These poems move, disturb and bring us to realization.

Click to read an excerpt from Bone Dream.

Moira MacDougall is the assistant poetry editor of The Literary Review of Canada. She has had poems published in literary magazines and journals across the country. This is her first book length collection.

ISBN-10: 1926639030
ISBN-13: 9781926639031
Price: $18.95
Pub Date: Fall 2009

From a long list drawn from Canadian literary journals and magazines, award-winning poet A.F. Moritz, the volume’s guest editor, has chosen 50 of the best Canadian poems published in 2008.

With this anthology, readers, often baffled by proliferating poems and poets, will be able to tap into the remarkable and vibrant Canadian poetry scene, checking out the currents – and cross currents – of poetry in a volume distilled by a round robin of distinguished editorial taste.

Featuring work from Margaret Atwood, Margaret Avison, Ken Babstock, Shirley Bear, Tim Bowling, Asa Boxer, Anne Compton, Jan Conn, Lorna Crozier, Barry Dempster, Don Domanski, John Donlan, Tyler Enfield, Jesse Ferguson, Connie Fife, Adam Getty, Steven Heighton, Michael Johnson, Sonnet L’Abbe, Anita Lahey, M Travis Lane, Evelyn Lau, Richard Lemm, Dave Margoshes, Don McKay, Eric Miller, Shane Neilson, Peter Norman, David O’Meara, PK Page, Elise Partridge, Elizabeth Philips, Meredith Quartermain, Matt Rader, John Reibetanz, Robyn Sarah, Peter Dale Scott, Cora Sire, Karen Solie, Carmine Starnino, John Steffler, Ricardo Sternberg, John Terpstra, Sharon Thesen, Matthew Tierney, Patrick Warner, Tom Wayman, Patricia Young, Changming Yuan, and Jan Zwicky.

Click to read an excerpt from The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2009.

About the guest editor:
A native of Niles, Ohio, A.F. Moritz has lived in Toronto since graduating from Marquette University in Milwaukee in 1974. He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Toronto. His poetry has received the Award in Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as Canada Council, Guggenheim Foundation and Ingram Merrill Foundation fellowships. He has translated books by Ludwig Zeller including In the Country of the Antipodes: Selected Poems 1964 – 1979 and The Ghost’s Tattoos.

About the series editor:
Molly Peacock is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems, published by Penguin Canada, and by W.W. Norton in the US and UK. She is the Poetry Editor of the Literary Review of Canada. Before she emigrated to Canada in1992, she was one of the creators of Poetry in Motion on the Buses and Subways in New York City, and she served as an early advisor to Poetry On The Way. Peacock is also the author of a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece, published by McClelland and Stewart, and of a book about poetry, How To Read A Poem & Start A Poetry Circle, also published by M & S. Her reviews and essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and the TLS. Recently she toured with her one-woman show in poems, The Shimmering Verge produced by the London, Ontario based company, Femme Fatale Productions. She lives in Toronto with her husband, Michael Groden, an English Professor at the University of Western Ontario. Her website is: mollypeacock.org.

ISBN-10: 0978335171
ISBN-13: 9780978335175
Price: $18.95
Pub Date: 2008

From a long list of one hundred poems drawn from Canadian literary journals magazines, this year’s guest editor, award winning poet Stephanie Bolster, has chosen fifty of the best Canadian poems published in 2007.

With this anthology readers, baffled by proliferating poems and poets, can for the first time tap into the remarkable and vibrant Canadian poetry scene.

Readers are invited to explore the currents and cross-currents of poetry in a distinguished volume distilled by a round robin of esteemed editorial taste.

Featuring work from Maleea Acker, James Arthur, Leanne Averbach, Margaret Avison, Ken Babstock, John Wall Barger, Brian Bartlett, John Barton, Yvonne Blomer, Tim Bowling, Heather Cadsby, Anne Compton, Kevin Connolly, Meira Cook, Dani Couture, Sadiqa de Meijer, Barry Dempster, Jeramy Dodds, Jeffery Donaldson, Susan Elmslie, Jason Guriel, Aurian Haller, Jason Heroux, Iain Higgins, Bill Howell, Helen Humphreys, Amanda Lamarche, Tim Lilburn, Michael Lista, Keith Maillard, Don McKay, AF Moritz, Jim Nason, Peter Norman, Alison Pick, E Alex Pierce, Craig Poile, Matt Rader, Michael Eden Reynolds, Shane Rhodes, Joy Russell, Heather Sellers, David Seymour, J Mark Smith, Adam Sol, Carmine Starnino, Anna Swanson, Todd Swift, JR Toriseva, and Leif E Vaage.

Click to read an excerpt from The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008.

About the editors:

Molly Peacock is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems. She is the Poetry Editor of the Literary Review of Canada. Before she emigrated to Canada in1992, she was one of the creators of Poetry in Motion in New York City, and she served as an early advisor to Poetry On The Way. Her reviews and essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, and her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and the TLS. She lives in Toronto.

Stephanie Bolster’s first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award in 1998. She has also published Two Bowls of Milk, which won the Archibald Lampman Award and was shortlisted for the Trillium Award. Her work has appeared in literary journals internationally and has also garnered her the Bronwen Wallace Award, the Norma Epstein Award, and The Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize. Her several chapbooks include, most recently, Biodme and Past the Roman Arena. Raised in Burnaby, B.C., she now lives in Montreal, where she teaches in the creative writing programme at Concordia University.

ISBN-10: 0973864567
ISBN-13: 9780973864564
Price: $14.95
Pub Date: 2007

In the fantastical world of Sandra Kasturi’s poetry, myth intersects with reality resulting in a unique dream world that even those who generally shy away from poetry find irresistible.

Filled with instances of role reversal, shapeshifting and gender bending, the feminist streak running through these poems becomes a bedtime story whose ending is suspect, unexpected and filled with dark humour.

Whether running with the wolves, or sleeping with them, Kasturi uses her sly words to turn everyday conventions inside out.

With an introduction by Neil Gaiman.

Click to read an excerpt from The Animal Bridegroom.

Sandra Kasturi is a poet, writer and editor. She is currently working on an animated children’s TV series, a novel and another poetry collection. In 2005 she won ARC magazine’s coveted annual Poem of the Year award for her poem “Old Men, Smoking.” She has also received several Toronto Arts Council grants, and a Bram Stoker Award for her editorial work at the on-line magazine, ChiZine. Sandra has three poetry chapbooks published, as well as the well-received SF poetry anthology, The Stars As Seen from this Particular Angle of Night, which she edited. Her poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Prairie Fire, On Spec, several of the Tesseracts series, 2001: A Science Fiction Poetry Anthology, and Northern Frights 4. Her cultural essay, “Divine Secrets of the Yaga Sisterhood” appeared in the anthology Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Slayers, Mutants and Freaks. Sandra is a founding member of the Algonquin Square Table poetry workshop and runs her own imprint, Kelp Queen Press. The Animal Bridegroom is her first full-length poetry collection.