Quill and Quire

Poetry

Slow States of Collapse

By Ashley-Elizabeth Best

Ashley-Elizabeth Best’s debut collection, Slow States of Collapse, comprises mostly short, confessional, free-verse lyrics. The book is divided into five sections, some held more tightly together than others by a thematic or referential constant. The ... Read More »

March 29, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

Settler Education

By Laurie D. Graham

Laurie D. Graham’s second collection of poems requires a bit of mental pinball to follow its complicated construction of the past and present. Until I read the poems in conjunction with the endnotes and references, ... Read More »

March 28, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

Songs of Exile

By Bänoo Zan

Bänoo Zan immigrated to Canada in 2010 from Iran, where she taught English literature. The poems in her debut collection are not overtly autobiographical, but nevertheless powerfully convey the immigrant experience. The language is spare, ... Read More »

March 21, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

A Mingus Lullaby

By Dane Swan

“Genre doesn’t exist,” claims Dane Swan in a 2013 interview on the website Black Coffee Poet. “There are different ways you have to manipulate your work so that it fits a medium. Medium exists. For ... Read More »

March 9, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

You can’t bury them all

By Patrick Woodcock

Canadian poet Patrick Woodcock has spent much of his life as an expatriate in diverse countries that include Poland, Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Colombia. In his new collection, the poet ... Read More »

January 26, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

Careen

By Carolyn Smart

At first glance, the seventh collection from Carolyn Smart and the highly anticipated new work of conceptual poetry from Christian Bök share little in common. The former is a suite of narrative poems that retell ... Read More »

November 17, 2015 | Filed under: Poetry