Quill and Quire

Poetry

By Tolu Oloruntoba

In the notes and attributions to Tolu Oloruntoba’s third collection – a list that includes Albert Camus and Alice Oswald, Ben Okri and John Donne, Christine Miserandino’s spoon theory (about energy allotment in people living ... Read More »

April 16, 2025 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews

By Natalie Lim

Elegy for Opportunity has that unwilling-to-be-embarrassed, declarative quality many debuts possess, an earnestness that hasn’t been spoiled by over-crafting or listening too closely to the demands of CanLit. It’s a (presumably?) millennial poet’s first urgent ... Read More »

April 2, 2025 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews

By Shannon Webb-Campbell

  Shannon Webb-Campbell’s latest poetry collection, Re:Wild Her, is inhabited by an otherworldly narrator – part mystic, part pagan, part cool auntie, part It girl, all the way feminist goddess. The dedication itself indicates the ... Read More »

March 26, 2025 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews

By Manahil Bandukwala

Manahil Bandukwala’s second collection of poems, Heliotropia, shares its name with a unisex perfume by Swedish luxury brand Byredo. Like the scent’s floral note of jasmine, a flower that opens at night, the works in ... Read More »

December 11, 2024 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews

By Annick MacAskill

Annick MacAskill’s Votive, the anticipated follow-up to her 2022 Governor General’s Award–winning collection Shadow Blight, combines themes of intimacy, privacy, eros, and queerness, while the transgressive and the religious infuse this collection. Of course, votive ... Read More »

November 27, 2024 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews

By Wakefield Brewster

Bringing spoken word poetry to the page has historically been seen as controversial, since academia has tended to dictate the ways that poetry can be received and read, and spoken word consistently continues to challenge ... Read More »

June 12, 2024 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews

By Cassidy McFadzean

“The most interesting part of architecture is the non-functioning,” writes Cassidy McFadzean in “Pier Evil,” one of the poems in her third collection. In a later poem, McFadzean clarifies this observation: “Fluting’s the only feature ... Read More »

April 24, 2024 | Filed under: Poetry, Reviews