2006 | Reviews of Canadian Poetry Books and Chapbooks

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen

By Skoopchap May 29, 2006November 23, 2018

Review by Stephen Morrissey. Leonard Cohen has excelled at all of his creative endeavours, as a poet, a novelist, and as a songwriter. Whether he is compared to his singer-songwriter contemporaries Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, or compared to Margaret Atwood—the only Canadian literary contemporary equal to Cohen in terms of fame—he is among the most creative and accomplished writers Canada has produced. Cohen’s Book of Longing is made up of poems written over the last thirty years and includes on almost every page original drawings that he made of himself and other subjects. Book of Longing is not a major book in Leonard Cohen’s body of work. Some of the poems are very good, but it is mostly a

Where Sound Pools by Lynn Davies

By Skoopchap April 27, 2006November 23, 2018

Review by Ian LeTourneau. Lynn Davies’ first collection, The Bridge that Carries the Road, published in 1999, was nominated for the Governor General’s and Gerald Lampert Awards. Where Sound Pools, her second book, equally deserves prize nominations. On the surface, the poems seem straightforward: lyrical with some narrative excursions. But don’t be fooled. They contain more depth than Jules Vernes’ 20,000 leagues. Davies’ poems are distinguished by the dexterity and playfulness of her tones and metaphors. In poem after poem, Davies’ powerful imagination produces arrestingly fresh metaphors which are not only apt, but are whimsical, adding some much appreciated, oft-neglected humour to Canadian literature. Take these few examples of Davies at her whimsical best: at a music recital, we glimpse

Point No Point by Jane Munro

By Skoopchap April 18, 2006November 23, 2018

Reviewed by Jenna Butler Jane Munro’s Point No Point is a quietly eclectic collection of poems situated strongly in both location and recollection. Just as her poems are rooted in the physical landscape and rugged geography of British Columbia’s west coast, so too are they deeply anchored in memory and the ways in which we carry memory: in the blood and in the bones. These poems reveal Munro’s fine hand at contrast: at the same time that the physical landscape she writes about is harsh and isolating, it is also recreated and softened through memory. This is true of events and people, also — to the point where memory becomes a malleable thing and is open to alteration, whether intentionally

Full speed through the morning dark by Matthew Tierney

By Skoopchap April 9, 2006September 5, 2023

Poetry is an ideal form for writing about travel. Individual poems capture moments and as a collection give the reader a literary photo album of the experience. Full speed through the morning dark, Matthew Tierney’s first collection, documents the poet’s travels through Asia, Russia, Ireland, and Wales. The book is divided into five sections, each representing a particular part of his journey. The first section, “The Word For Ai,” takes place in Japan, and the end of a relationship is accentuated by the loneliness of an unfamiliar country. In “Night Watch,” the poet discovers that one is never completely alone in Japan: In the building across from me the man in white underwear is doing his sit-ups. Behind him the television

Abandon by Oana Avasilichioaei

By Skoopchap April 5, 2006November 23, 2018

Review by Kris Brandhagen. Oana Avasilichioaei’s first book of poetry, Abandon (Wolsak and Wynn 2005), begins with a brilliance that is almost impossible to follow. The first section, “Dragon,” builds up a momentum that is difficult to maintain, and the following two sections — “Abandoned Markets” and “From the Diaries of the Dead Daughter” — are a collage of subject, style, and tone that seem to cower in the shadows of “Dragon,” unable to answer the challenge. In “Dragon,” Avasilichioaei reveals a solipsistic, gluttonous character who is endlessly falling into the shadows of his own funk. Avasilichioaei’s vivid, mythical style grabs you immediately, listens to your “stomach rumble” (13), and then sprays you with its spittle, shouting “I have eaten

Miraculous Hours by Matt Rader

By Skoopchap April 2, 2006November 23, 2018

Reviewed by Greg Santos The box of matches on the cover of Matt Rader’s first collection of poems, Miraculous Hours, evokes the fierce, combustible nature of his work. “Prologue” sets the tone for the book by having walls tortured in order for them to talk: Then, I choose a hammer and drive a six-inch spike through the gyprock. The dog digs under the fence. A bird flies into the window. A small red blister at the site of the wound. A whisker of blood. My eyelids twitch. The walls are ready to talk. (9) This introduction provides a glimpse into an environment loaded with both beauty and cruelty, where the unusual interactions between characters shape their perception of the world

Vancouver Walking by Meredith Quartermain

By Skoopchap March 21, 2006November 23, 2018

Review by Jenna Butler. Meredith Quartermain’s Vancouver Walking is a sensory and historical exploration into what creates a sense of place; specifically, how identity becomes layered onto a place by the different groups of people who live there. It’s the title series of poems in this collection that lend Vancouver Walking its immediate appeal. Eye-catching on the page and thick with snippets of history dredged up from Vancouver’s archives, the Vancouver Walking poems serve to instantly drop the reader into Quartermain’s recreated landscape. She doesn’t pepper her work with overriding statements or emotional judgments; rather, the arrangement of the text on the page and the inclusion of certain historical statements allows the reader to develop his/her own emotional reaction to

The Wireless Room by Shane Rhodes [Retro Review]

By Skoopchap March 1, 2006January 10, 2019

Shane Rhodes takes a lot of poetic risks in The Wireless Room (NeWest 2000). Rhodes is not governed by any one style, form, language, or theme; he is about variation, innovation, intelligence, and electricity. In terms of metaphor, Rhodes’ writing is rich and evocative. His metaphors and similes can be brief and vivid (”a jet splits the sky, a scalpel in a Caesarian” [”Home Roads” 8]) or long and drawn out, as in “Twilight, Watervalley Hills” (11-12) in which, for the entirety of the poem, the hills are compared to the dialogue of a drunken uncle. These metaphors can also contain a lot of emotional intensity, as when the speaker of “Claims” says of his alcoholic father, “My father swallowed the 30

Were the Bees by Andy Weaver

By Skoopchap February 9, 2006January 10, 2019

Some of us have been waiting years for a first collection from Edmonton poet Andy Weaver to appear, and finally it has, published by Edmonton’s NeWest Press in spring 2005 as the collection Were the Bees. Weaver’s poems are almost a bridge between the prairie lines of Robert Kroetsch, the current trends of more traditional Canadian lyric modes and the considerations of the Canadian avant-garde. An admirer of the work of Don McKay and Jan Zwicky, for example, Weaver holds as much appreciation for the work of, say, derek beaulieu and Louis Cabri, all of which he has brought to Edmonton as part of his former involvement (as founder/organizer) in the monthly Olive reading and chapbook series. The strongest section of