For half a century, independent press Brick Books has been publishing poetry – and nothing but poetry. 

Founded in 1975 by poets Don McKay and Stan Dragland, the press has focused exclusively on verse since its inception. And the fact that it has continued to do just that for decades, without wavering or expanding into more lucrative genres, is an accomplishment that has its current owners feeling proud.

“Keeping a poetry-only small press not only alive but thriving for 50 years in a capitalist culture is an unlikely feat, and we’re in the mood to celebrate.” This sentence serves as the introduction to each of a series of anniversary blog posts on the publisher’s website in which Canadian poets revisit titles from the Brick backlist in celebration of the milestone.

“It really is an unlikely feat, it really is,” co-owner and business manager Brenda Leifso tells Q&Q. 

Leifso came on board in an interim capacity for about a year before taking over from Kitty Lewis as business manager in 2020, at the same time as publisher and co-owner Alayna Munce took on those roles. Munce, whose work has been shortlisted for the Trillium Prize, has worked at the press since 2007 and joined the Brick Books editorial collective a few years later. Poet Sue Sinclair, who has been published by and edits books for Brick, is a silent owner. 

Leifso credits the press’s enduring success to the passion and determination of its poet founders, as well as to the commitment of Lewis, McKay’s sister, who the pair asked early on in the press’s history to take on the management of Brick Books. Lewis, a community creator who was also instrumental in the creation of the Literary Press Group, became “the organizational force” behind Brick’s success, Leifso says.

McKay, a prolific poet and educator who has won the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry twice, and Dragland, a literary critic, poet, and writer of fiction and nonfiction, created a community for poets in Canada, and were always kind and poem-focused in their dealings with authors on the list, Leifso says. 

“Both of them are masters, and that could have come along with a lot of arrogance, but it just did not. They both believed in the unconventional ways of seeing the world and living in the world that undergird poetry,” says Leifso, who was herself published by Brick Books in the early 2000s and remembers McKay and Dragland’s gentle and thoughtful feedback at a time when she was starting to build her confidence as a poet.

Since taking over the helm at Brick Books, Munce and Leifso have implemented an annual subscription plan that allows readers to commit in advance to the seven to nine poetry books the press publishes each year. Subscribers receive the books before they are available for sale elsewhere, as well as subscriber-only perks. (This year’s perk is an anniversary sticker that features a poem by Jody Chan.)

Brick’s importance over the years can be traced through a timeline of the many award-winning books it has published by Canadian poets of all kinds. But its enduring relevance speaks to the continued importance of verse culturally. 

“Poetry is never going to make the same amount of money for publishers and writers (as fiction and nonfiction),” Leifso says. “But as we say, what do people bring to funerals and weddings and special events? They bring poetry. It defines the crisis moments of our lives.”