We look away from his open mouth,
look instead at the corn, the crows
floating above the river in their private worries.
Tonight, when we turn in,
the candle will sputter and blow.
Pinched out easily, all flame
gives way to this wide black wing.
— excerpt from “Black Wing”

The poems in Ashland, originally published by ECW in 2003, lay the groundwork for Adamson’s award–winning and internationally bestselling novel, The Outlander.

Taking off from the Promethean myth of human creation, Gillian Sze’s second poetry collection explores the “anatomy of clay” and the individual as a sentient mystery. At times reflective, instructional, playful, or strange, the first section, Quotidianus, offers observational poems, which recount intimate and ordinary moments often missed, overlooked, or forgotten. Sze tugs at the fabric of habit and amidst the urban mundane finds her subjects in a woman waiting for the bus, a neighbour who talks to his plants, a girl smoking after a storm.

Taking off from the Promethean myth of human creation, Gillian Sze’s second poetry collection explores the “anatomy of clay” and the individual as a sentient mystery. At times reflective, instructional, playful, or strange, the first section, Quotidianus, offers observational poems, which recount intimate and ordinary moments often missed, overlooked, or forgotten. Sze tugs at the fabric of habit and amidst the urban mundane finds her subjects in a woman waiting for the bus, a neighbour who talks to his plants, a girl smoking after a storm.

The poems in The Flower of Youth depict the coming of age and into sexual difference of the great writer and film director, Pier Paolo Pasolini. The time of this story is World War II; the place is German-occupied northern Italy. Unlike his younger brother, Guido, who took up arms to fight in the resistance, Pasolini chose to help his mother set up a school for the boys, mostly sons of farmers, too young to fight or be conscripted.

In Asian folklore cranes symbolize longevity, immortality, and good fortune. In Winter Cranes, his third collection, award–winning poet Chris Banks conjures these birds when he sees herons near his home towards the end of a long and difficult winter.

The Semiconducting Dictionary: Our Strindberg is a playful original re-visioning of the life of notorious misogynist and modern drama master August Strindberg, mixing prose and poetry of various forms from different historical periods including straightforward lyric, found poetry, haibun, list poems, magic spells, and alchemical recipes to construct a portrait and to tell a story.

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The two sections that comprise matt robinson’s fourth full-length volume of poetry, Against the Hard Angle, though disparate in terms of form – the first consisting primarily of a long poem; the other a collection of shorter lyrical pieces – nonetheless share a common concern with ideas of relationship and its examination. At their core, these are poems about where we stand in relation to the rest of our various worlds.

from “North of 60”
Angels are aliens in spaceships. Angels descend
and eagles soar. I am not an eagle. If I were an angel I would descend
and give you of the bread of happiness
the salt of anger
& the message you already know better than I know:
the moon & the lakes & the hills
are forever.

It’s difficult to describe A Nice Place to Visit. Some will say it’s not a book of poetry at all — but that’s just because it’s funny and has reviews of bad movies and advice on things like love. Also, it’s a kind of travelogue: you get to go to Costa Rica and look at plants and and stuff and think more about love. And oh yeah, the book tells you who not to sleep with — that’s very important. And have you ever heard of John Wildman, the guy who starred in the Canadian hit movie My American Cousin?