Broken hymns. Desperate prayers. Tales of first heroes. Stories of the street. The poems in Steve Meagher's first book, Navy Blue, walk the middle ground between sorrow and salvation, tackling themes of devotion, regret, innocence lost and mortality through an array of dark landscapes and narratives of the dispossessed. Written in sharp and urgent language with undercurrents of raw emotion, this book marks the arrival of a brave and original new voice in Canadian poetry.

Steve Meagher grew up in Oakville, Ontario. His poems have appeared in Carousel, The Nashwaak Review and Ottawa Arts Review. Navy Blue is his first book. He lives in Toronto.

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Meagher has polished these poems till they shine.

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Steve Meagher's Navy Blue is full of ghost voices, fever dreams, cowboy saints and hard scrabble benediction.

Singer-songwriter Jason Collett

"Navy Blue is an exhilarating, guerrilla romp... These poems are a cross of Bob Dylan casual strangeness and Jimi Hendrix bluesy surrealism" George Elliott Clarke, Poet laureate of Toronto (2012-2015).

Navy Blue is an exhilarating, guerrilla romp through tabloid news talk and Internet inanity to set up the seditious poetry Marshall McLuhan would’ve written if he could’ve. These poems are a cross of Bob Dylan casual strangeness and Jimi Hendrix bluesy surrealism. (Think “Visions of Johanna” mixed with “My Friend”.) Each line could spin off into its own bizarre screenplay: “The doctor kept cutting / Now the blood was everywhere … / I listened to the crickets / Their prayers sounded like my bicycle.” Nicely, Meagher gives shout-outs to Ray Souster and Irv Layton, claiming their street-wise vernacular and sardonic, ironic insights. But I see a touch of Dick Brautigan here too, in the accomplished insouciance, the freedom to just “say” and have the meaning be in that liberty. Ladies, gents, here’s the new vibe. Ready to be experienced?

George Elliott Clarke, Parliamentary Poet Laureate