National Network for Equitable Library Service

In Rhyme Stones, we go spelunking, we meet a witch who can't stay on her broomstick, a schoolyard bully, and we see how a simple piece of cloth can become anything we want it to be. Each long poem is followed by an exclusive interview with the main character, and each short poem has a "trailer" of cool facts about the theme.

The poems in this book tell stories of animals and nature, from two sweaty hippos, a smiling lizard and some creepy crawlers to a few tricky dandelions. At the end of each poem, find out more in an interview with a key character or a list of fascinating facts.

In Monster Lunch we dine with Frankenstein, attend a burgoo and a birthday party, meet a grumpy garden dude and slurp hot zoop. Each poem is followed by an interview with the main character or fascinating facts about food. This collection of yummy, yucky, messy and hot rhyming stories is bursting with rhythmical fun.

Praised for his darkly psychological accounts of extreme experiences, Jim Johnstone’s fifth book of poems explores his most difficult terrain to date: mental illness and addiction. Like Coleridge's opium dreams, Johnstone's narratives in The Chemical Life are hallucinatory, coloured by his use of both prescription and recreational drugs.

A legend of 19th century French Canadian poetry, Émile Nelligan was only 16 when he fell under the influence of Baudelaire and Rimbaud and began writing taut, confidently surrealistic poems, shot through self-lacerating melancholy. Three years later, when a mental collapse led to his life-long institutionalization in 1899, he had already produced an impressive body of work.

Carnal, flamboyant, visceral and bold, Table Manners is a rich meal. Catriona Wright’s debut introduces us to the image of the poet as “gastronaut,” a figure who seems to live entirely between table and a stove and who steeps her surroundings and relationships in complex emotional flavours. “My life,” she writes, “is now tuned to bone marrow donuts and chef gossip. I’m useless at any other frequency.” Wright’s wild narratives are sometimes funny, sometimes frightening and always ravishingly observed.

Satisfying Clicking Sound is a book that’s never afraid to make a show of itself. In his third collection, Jason Guriel gives us a quick-thinking colloquial style that segues deftly from deadpan wit to deep emotion. Like the hard-to-master knuckleball he celebrates as “less spun / than blown / out onto the air, / its course unknown,” Guriel’s poetry is equal parts art, talent, luck, and mystery. Consistently rewarding, Satisfying Clicking Sound is a quicksilver performance from one of Canadian poetry’s most distinctive new voices.

Like the “page turned down to make another / page,” Dog Ear explores the marks we leave on a world whose social and political markers are constantly shifting. In his fourth book of poems—and most powerful work to date—Jim Johnstone establishes himself as an exquisite observer of decay, both physical and spiritual.

In this latest short-story collection Josip Novakovich explores the shallow roots of emigration as he traverses North America from university post to writing residency. These stunning stories showcase the author at his most intimate, taking on an aura of memoir as they invite us into the privacy of his family experiences. Above all, Novakovich is in search of a natural existence, whether it be living close to the land or raising animals.