Skoopchap

Every Inadequate Name by Nick Thran

Every Inadequate Name by Nick Thran

By Skoopchap
Reviewed by Alessandro Porco In his debut collection of poetry, Every Inadequate Name, Nick Thran’s is at its best when his poem’s speaker’s emotional transparency is honest enough to admit complicity; he’s flawed and guilty, young and frivolous — that is to say, too human for living yet just perfect for poetry. Conversely, the collection is at its worst when the poem’s speaker participates only in his capacity as a moralizing spectator, resulting in off-putting poems quietly dictated from the sidelines. Perhaps these are the inevitable two faces of a romantic like Thran. Where one goes, the other follows. Surely, there are other poems that fall somewhere in between, but they are for some other review to take up and
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Unsettled by Zachariah Wells

Unsettled by Zachariah Wells

By Skoopchap
“Not since Al Purdy’s North of Summerhas a Canadian poet written so compellingly about life in the frozen arctic,” opens the back-cover blurb of Vancouver-via-Baffin Island-via-PEI poet Zachariah Wells’ first collection, Unsettled. The similarities between Purdy’s book and Wells’ — a collection of poems written during Wells’ time working as an airline freight handler on Baffin and Cornwallis Islands — are found both in their subject matter and styles. The poems in the two collections explore the authors’ sense of self as grounded in (and out of) place – writers utilizing a foreign land to unlock once-foreign parts of themselves. Likewise, stylistically, it would not take much to convince me that lines such as “Tirelessness, sleeplessness, endless darkness, endless / light, boxes,
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I Cut My Finger by Stuart Ross

I Cut My Finger by Stuart Ross

By Skoopchap
Review by Nick Thran The 2003 publication of Stuart Ross’ Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New and Selected was met with the sort of mixed reception one would expect from such an alchemical poet. One had the sense that, while admiring his achievement, reviewers still refused to see him as more than a sort of eccentric uncle of the Can-Lit scene — a little too earnest for the staunchly avant-garde, a little too wacky for the more traditional camps. In the four years since Hey, Crumbling Balcony! and this year’s recently published I Cut My Finger, Stuart Ross’ influence has been felt more than ever. Younger poets in Canada publishing books of a decidedly surrealist nature (Kevin Connolly’s drift, Jason Heroux’s
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maria scala

Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method by Daniel Scott Tysdal

By Skoopchap
Review by Maria Scala. In reviewing Daniel Scott Tysdal’s Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method, many words come to mind, foremost of these are playful and innovative. Even before I read a single poem, the books slick red cover, the title emblazoned across the front in uppercase, its unusual trim size (8 1/2 x 11 ), and its page after page of carefully formatted text and images, promised not your average book of poetry. And not your average editor George Elliot Clarke worked on the book with Tysdal. Clarke was on the jury that awarded Tysdal the John V. Hicks Manuscript prize from the Saskatchewan Writers Guild in 2004. After publication in 2006, Tysdal went
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Before the First Word: The Poetry of Lorna Crozier edited by Catherine Hunter

By Skoopchap
Lorna Crozier is a knowledgeable poet and a worthy matriarch for Canadian poetry. Before the First Word: The Poetry of Lorna Crozier is a part of a new wise series of texts from Wilfrid Laurier University Press that strive to bring Canadian poets to a larger audience. Without pretence and with an eye to producing the effect of improvisation, these collections come selected and introduced by a critic with an afterword from the poet represented. This project is one of the most exciting, cooperative, communal and familial endeavours that I have seen coming out of the poetry establishment in the past few years and all of my praise goes out to Wilfrid Laurier Press for their efforts. The poems of Lorna Crozier
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Busy, busy, busy — and in need of reviewers

By Skoopchap
Sorry for the lack of updates recently. New reviews from Jason Rotstein, Maria Scala, Rob Taylor, and Shane Neilson will be posted shortly. In the mean time, I have 80+ books, chapbooks, and audio books sitting on my shelf waiting to be reviewed. If you’re interested in reviewing for the site and live in Canada, send a sample of your writing and a brief bio to ebarstad [at] gmail [dot] com.
Near Cooper Marsh by Jesse Ferguson

Near Cooper Marsh by Jesse Ferguson

By Skoopchap
Review by Rob Taylor The simple fact that this review is written for an online audience greatly increases the chances that you will have already heard of Fredericton (formerly Ottawa)-based poet Jesse Ferguson. Amongst the plethora of poets whose work has found a strong footing in online and small-press publications, Ferguson is near the top of the list in both quantity and quality. To attest to this one need look no further than the acknowledgements page of his chapbook Near Cooper Marsh, which notes that the fifteen poems in the collection have been published in no fewer than ten small-press magazines. It is therefore in keeping that Near Cooper Marsh itself has been published online (http://www.fridaycircle.uottawa.ca/ferguson/ii-6-main.html) as part of the
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Transversals for Orpheus & the untitled 1-13 by Garry Thomas Morse

By Skoopchap
Review by Rob Mclennan. One of the first series of LINEbooks produced through Vancouver’s West Coast Line magazine, Garry Thomas Morse’s Transversals for Orpheus & the untitled 1-13 works from what Erin Mouré called “transelation,” working poems by Pessoa into her own Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person (Toronto ON: House of Anansi Press, 2001). In the back of his first collection of poetry, writing “for a case of textual influenza (antidote included): Sielger, Spicer, Blaser, okay Rilke too…” into his acknowledgments, he references a number of source materials for his pieces, including Talonbooks publisher Karl Sielger’s own translation of Rilke’s complete Sonnets to Orpheus (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 1977), recently included in the first publication of this same series, companions
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Sporatic Growth by Jay MillAr

Sporatic Growth by Jay MillAr

By Skoopchap
Review by Rob Mclennan. B ebb uterus larvae gesture in it is an alley in it is alive laying redistributed i shed great by dared kinetic relish old low street change in gifts think converting excrement larvae gestures dead is how even if their content varies exam in ate a thread distance health inside part ice culinary lying oval void continues vexed the inside holds lower could never express holy low wing After years of producing work in books and chapbooks, it seems as though Toronto poet and publisher Jay MillAr is coming into his own, much the way Prince George poet Rob Budde has over the past few publications out of his own British Columbia north, both working in
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Merrybegot by Mary Dalton

Merrybegot by Mary Dalton

By Skoopchap
Review by Melanie Maddix. When I first read Mary Dalton’s Merrybegot (Audio Book | Print Version), I was immediately taken in by its musicality. This book loves language. The idioms of Newfoundland take some getting used to, and I must confess that I still don’t know what they all mean. For the most part it can be guessed at by the context, or if you are the studious type, Dalton provides a web link for The Dictionary of Newfoundland English. A few poems are taken directly from the dictionary. Dalton formed “She” from a usage example for saucy: Was as good a gun As ever was put to your face, And she could kill anywhere. All you had to do
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