Blog
The timing of the book’s release was coincidental, though it’s a fortunate coincidence in that Katrina and the subsequent levee breaches that wreaked such devastation in New Orleans are back in the public consciousness and may make readers more interested in the perspective the book offers. Sadly, the inequalities the disaster highlighted are even more acute now than they were then, and the climate change that contributed to the storm has only worsened.
After Hurricane Katrina, the photographer Robert Polidori flew to New Orleans to document the devastation. In the wreckage he witnessed, and in her questions about what she saw in what he saw, Stephanie Bolster found the beginnings of a long poem. Those questions led to unexpected places; meanwhile, life kept pouring in. The ensuing book, Long Exposure, is Bolster’s fifth, a roaming, associative exploration of disasters and their ongoing aftermaths, sufferings large and small, and the vulnerability and value of our own lives. Incremental, unsettling, Long Exposure rushes to and through us.
To put it simply, because I’m not that interested in myself. Which isn’t true, of course – what poet isn’t obsessed with themselves – but perhaps I'm not that interested in the front-facing, autobiographical concept of ‘Guy Elston’. Memory, identity, the cause and effect of life and its happenings – it’s all a sheer mountain face, senseless. I need an angle, a longer way round.
Speech Dries Here on the Tongue (edited by Hollay Ghadery, Rasiqra Revulva, and Amanda Shankland) is an anthology of poetry by Canadian authors, published by The Porcupine’s Quill, exploring the relationship between environmental collapse and mental health.
It’s been listed as a book to read by Quill & Quire and CBC Books, and we’re honoured to have one of the editors, Amanda Shankland, join us for this Power Q & A to talk about where this anthology started for her.
We became aware of American poet Alex Gurtis through his work as a literary critic and then further familiarized ourselves with his work in the literary community—specifically, his work uplifting Canadian authors. Then, we learned more about his poetry, and our interest was doubly piqued. We picked up his chapbook, When the Ocean Comes to Me (Bottlecap Press, 2024), and were blown away.
Barbara Tran’s entrancing poetry collection, Precedented Parrotting (Palimpsest Press, 2024), was a finalist for the Governor General Literary Award for Poetry. This beautiful book stands as an expansive debut that plumbs personal archives and traverses the natural world.
We are honoured to have Barbara join us for our Power Q & A series to speak with us about the visual impact of her work, which uses the whole stage of the page.
Sheila Stewart’s stunning poetry collection, If I Write About My Father, (Ekstasis Editions, 2024) dismantles the patriarchal religious ideologies of Sheila’s upbringing by a protestant minister, while sustaining the emotional intimacy experienced in familial relationships.
Sheila explores the daughter-father relationship, uncovering the complexities of growing up as the minister’s only daughter in a family shaped by church and manse in small-town southern Ontario. She braids narrative and lyric, the textures of liturgy and memory. While critiquing patriarchal weight and constraint, the work explores how a particular religious upbringing shapes thinking, the rhythms of language, and the fabric of consciousness.
