Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by derek beaulieu
Revolver by Kevin Connolly
Water Strider by Karen Hofman
The Work of Days by Sarah Lang
The Withdrawal Method by Pasha Malla
Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin.
THEREFORE REPENT! by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam
The Rush to Here by George Murray
Occupational Sickness by Nichita Stanescu, Translated by Oana Avasilichioaei
Nightwood Editions, 2007
Read by Jakub Stachurski
“From a crack in the dark wall hang loose wires: / give a tug and watch society start / to unravel,” writes George Murray in “A Moment’s Autograph,” one of the opening poems of his fourth collection. It is a fitting introduction, as the four sequences of poems offer a kind of unraveling, an examination of the unseen, unaccounted moments of our lives: (more…)
House of Anansi, 2008
Read by Susan Briscoe
Many of the stories in The Withdrawal Method feature some version of a young male failing to achieve heroic status. Generally, the young man seems a nice-enough guy — a book store clerk, a daycare or social worker, the kind of guy who doesn’t like to fight; the disappointed party is a child or a woman with fairly reasonable expectations; and the required noble deed is perhaps no more demanding than not falling asleep on the job, not accelerating towards a child on the road, or not watching what you’re pretty sure is child porn. (more…)
Afterword by Marjorie Perloff.
Information As Material (UK), 2007.
Read by Jesse Ferguson
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is conceptual literature for the hard-core visual poetry aficionado. As with most good conceptual work, it’s not likely to end up in the hands of the guy sitting next to you on the bus, but it will register in small coteries of informed readers. This book consists of roughly one hundred pages of “superimposed seismographic images,” which plot the physical occurrence of letters on the pages of a source text. The source here is Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 science fiction novella of the same title, in which anthropomorphised polygons inhabit a two-dimensional world. (more…)
Coach House Books, 2007
Read by Aaron Giovannone
Sarah Lang’s first book The Work of Days captures the intimacy and alienation of domestic existence in supple and surprising language. (more…)
Translated by Oana Avasilichioaei
BuschekBooks, 2006
Read by Jenny Sampirisi
In her introduction to Occupational Sickness, translator Oana Avasilichioaei states that a translation is “a dialogue on paper. Between two languages. Between two generations. Between two cultures.” The result of that dialogue suggests that each of these linguistic rotations is routed in a translation of bodies. (more…)
No Media Kings, 2007
Read by Vincent Tinguely
The glory of science fiction and fantasy is the “what if?” factor. In Therefore Repent!, the authors gleefully explore one deceptively simple premise: “What if the Rapture actually happened?” (more…)
Frontenac House, 2008
Read by Jmae Barizo
This book is not about insects. A solitary six-legged creature does grace the cover however, and Karen Hofman’s debut collection seems to take a few lessons from water striders, which live on the surface of the water and need to push backward in order to generate forward motion. It is this “pushing backwards” that propels the book, which reads almost like a family narrative, chronicling the past with startling audacity. (more…)
House of Anansi Press, 2008
Read by Nick Thran
Kevin Connolly’s 2005 collection, drift, delivers more immediate pleasure than any Canadian poetry collection in recent memory. The poems don’t rely on a voice or personae to carry their momentum forward so much as buzz “like a bee on a psychotropic leash”: what is glib can turn earnest quick, the pastoral can back-flip into a surreal dreamscape, and the more rigid forms feel like aquariums perfectly suited to watching his multifarious digressions swim. drift is so good precisely because it satisfies a certain expectation for multiplicity. (more…)