Eight New Canadian Poetry Collections to Celebrate National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, and what better way to celebrate than with a new poetry collection (or eight)? These books from independent publishers across Canada show the range of voices, styles and subject matter that make our country’s poetry landscape so fantastic. Read on to find a collection that speaks to you, and happy National Poetry Month!

Parade of Storms
Storms, floods, wildfires and environmental devastation are at the heart of this award-winning author’s latest volume of poetry.
By Evelyn Lau (Anvil Press)

In her 10th volume of poetry, Parade of Storms, award-winning author Evelyn Lau turns her focus on the weather. Having never thought of herself as an environmental poet, the author found that under the strictures of the pandemic, the recent effects of climate change became more and more intrusive and unavoidable. Storms, floods, wildfires and environmental devastations have created news headlines both terrifying and poetic: “atmospheric rivers,” “heat dome,” “parade of storms.” Weather — both physical and emotional — forms the backdrop to this new collection.

The Door at the End of Everything
Poems honour those living with mental illness, and speak to suffering, courage and hope.
By Lynda Monahan (Shadowpaw Press)

The poems in The Door at the End of Everything were inspired by Lynda Monahan’s stint as writer-in-residence at Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and the people she came to know in its adult and youth mental health wards. Giving a voice to the marginalized, they also draw on her twelve years of experience as a facilitator for the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Write for Life Group. While the content can be dark, the poems have a light, lyrical touch. As editor Dave Margoshes puts it, Monahan’s collection is “infused with lovely imagery and a sense of hope, filled with vivid, arresting images and well-turned lines, and coloured by shades of darkness and light.”

ALL WRONG HORSES ON FIRE THAT GO AWAY IN THE RAIN
A captivating dive through one family’s history and a stunning examination of intergenerational trauma and its effect on Indigenous voices.
By Sarain Frank Soonias (NeWest Press / Crow Said Poetry)

This is a breathtaking first collection from a poet who focuses on mental health, decolonization and intergenerational trauma with delicacy and intent. For a debut poet, Soonias takes risks with form and language, showing a depth of writing technique that other authors take many collections to arrive at. Drawing on the traditions of country music, the poetry has a rhythm and structure to it that reflects the poet’s strong prairie roots. “Soonias reminds us that our people will always create beautiful art, even in what feels like an abyss,” says Emily Riddle, award-winning author of The Big Melt.

Country Music
Poems mined from the humour and violence of living in the mountains.
By Zane Koss (Invisible Publishing)

Zane Koss grew up listening to stories. Often these were told late at night around kitchen tables or campfires against the backdrop of rural British Columbia. The stories themselves, punctuated by the humour and violence of life in the mountains, offer a means of critiquing “extractiveness,” including both the violence of settler-colonial capitalism and the systems of class privilege that devalue rural, working-class experiences. Mining these materials for a rural poetics, Koss aims to understand both his working-class upbringing and academic surroundings. Country Music is a book that wants to find a way forward through the imperfect inheritance we’re given. “As if John Prine had spent his youth in the Kootenays,” says My Poets author Maureen McLane.

Born Sacred: Poems for Palestine
An in-time reflection honouring the shared histories of Indigenous Peoples of North America and the people of Palestine.
By Smokii Sumac (Fernwood Publishing / Roseway Publishing)

Written in a journalistic style, Born Sacred conveys the grief of the poet bearing witness to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, while also existing as a testament to life beyond genocide. As a survivor of genocide, Sumac draws connections between the genocide in Palestine and the genocide of Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island. Born Sacred is a vulnerable, eloquent, compassionate and enduring expression of solidarity of the deepest kind. “What Smokii Sumac has done, over the course of 100 searing, open-hearted poems, is give voice to the immeasurable grief of bearing witness to genocide,” says Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

Green
A debut collection exploring existence in a world of wonders.
By Paul Moorehead (Breakwater Books)

How does wonder induce change in us, as people and as readers? Green is the colour of change, of growth, of a streetlight saying “go,” of an infamous, angry comic book hero. And how do all of these things come together? In Green, poems merge in an intriguing, inquiring collection of precise humour and intense concentration on poetic craft. Drawing on scientific ideas, baseball culture, comic book imagery, the traumas of health-care professions, the joys and pitfalls of parenthood, and everything in between, Green challenges readers to find the connections in a world of wonders, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

West of West Indian
A poetry collection venerating what is true to queer Caribbean life.
By Linzey Corridon (Mawenzi House)

West of West Indian constructs the queer Caribbean experience as simultaneously individual and collective, embracing the language that continues to unsettle queer life. Separated yet connected across three sections, the collection ruminates on questions of life, love, loss and lament. The poems honour the lives of Queeribbean (queer Caribbean) inhabitants who weave their legacies into the fabric of Caribbean social, cultural and political genealogies. This collection is a summons and a love letter to familiar figures like the Bullerman, the Chichiman, the Funny man and the Anty man. It collects a distinctly queer Vincentian Canadian account of love and autonomy. While it represents a written journey into queer pain, it is also an exhibition of pleasure flowing through the bodies and minds of its many subjects.

Man on a Wheel: A Tribute to Patrick O’Connell
A hauntingly beautiful musical tribute to poet Patrick O’Connell by Winnipeg songwriter and poet Scott Nolan.
By Scott Nolan (Signature Editions)

In this new collection fusing music and poetry, Scott Nolan pays homage to the poet Patrick O’Connell, who influenced and inspired him early in his musical career. As a songwriter, Nolan doesn’t simply set O’Connell’s words to music — rather, he splices O’Connell’s lines together in new ways, and takes the words to new places. The resulting songs express O’Connell’s brilliant sensibility while resonating with that unique Scott Nolan sound. The CD includes eight original songs and a bonus track of Patrick O’Connell reading “Boz and Molly (A Romance).” Accompanying this is a book of lyrics illustrated with Nolan’s visual art, which includes paper collages that mirror the composition technique of the songs. Award-winning Winnipeg poet Catherine Hunter’s engaging introduction explores the connections forged between these two artists and provides insight into their work.

We hope this selection of collections inspired you to get poetic this National Poetry Month, and that you’ll consider buying direct from these links or from your local independent bookstore. Happy reading from your friends at the Literary Press Group of Canada.