Poetry

Tender Agencies explores the ephemeral yet tangible presence of language in our lives, and the manipulation of language and meaning; chaotic, confrontational, and laced with black humour.

"I grew up in a blue-collar town ten minutes down the road from a white-collar town. And I've spent most of my life uncomfortable in both places."

With these opening words, accomplished poet Tim Bowling outlines the central tension that acts as a vital force in his newest book, Tenderman--the dichotomy between the sensitive poetic observer and the t …

Ian LeTourneau imagines history and memory as a glacial landscape that is both advancing and inert. The result is a collection where metaphor unfurls on a conveyor belt of precise language constructed to assemble the past we pretend not to remember, the future we try not to imagine and the present we cannot escape. Shifting tectonic plates of memor …

Never complacent, and with a good measure of black humour, Ann Diamond takes chances and provokes us to think?about the state of our relationships with each other, perhaps even the state of our country. In Terrorist Letters she kicks up the sediment and does us all a great service by doing so. Welcome to Ann Diamond's disturbing beauty?to what her …

Testament is the summation of Dennis Lee's decade-long exploration of the dilemma of contemporary existence. Incorporating and rethinking the work published in Un and Yesno, and featuring many completely new poems, this startling collection reminds us anew of the catastrophic reality we have made of our planet, while simultaneously insisting on a p …

To tether is to join or hold together. It often involves placing, or accepting, constraints in order to continue in relationship. Or in order to protect and safeguard. Ultimately, tethering has to do with coherence and continuation, rather than separation or dissipation. In these poems, many things serve to tether: gravity and touch; history and me …

What is logic? Isn’t it a sickness we create? Useful for certain things, but not paramount in helping us be & share & change. Angels are rising in spirit places, helping us through & set against a back-drop of deaths, tortures, imprisonments, AIDS, big religious right-wing power control grabs, unroyal families, increasing poverty & the growing un …