Amid the heavy snow and cold one winter in southeastern B.C.'s mountains where Tom Wayman lives, he happened to reread the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's posthumous volume Winter Garden in translation. Wayman decided to write a series of poems in response to a phrase, image, or entire poem of the Nobel laureate's. Wayman's series ranges across memory …

Evelyn Lau’s new book of poems, A Grain of Rice, picks up on some of the themes she covered in her last wonderful book, Living Under Plastic. Once again she honours people, in particular family, and the past; the presence and importance of nature in urban spaces; the influence of other writers on her life and in her career as a writer.

Rainbow Stage-Manchuria, Steve Noyes’s fifth collection, sees him return to the long poem twice over, displaying his range and inventiveness. “Rainbow Stage” presents a 1973 rock concert in real time by the psychedelic Winnipeg band The Next. This sly mélange of panoramic action, wicked lyrics and deft character sketches is a broad wink at t …

Highly acclaimed by Books in Canada, the Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail, and Canadian Literature, twice shortlisted for the CBC literary prize, and selected as a People’s Choice winner, Bruce Hunter is a poet who goes to the core of life. These poems reveal the mysteries of rivers, the secrets of spurned loves, the lives of workers and the jo …

Living Under Plastic represents a major departure from the author’s previous poetry books. Instead of the obsessive focus on relationships and emotional damage that has characterized much of her earlier work, this book opens up to explore new subjects: family history, illness, death and dying, consumerism, and the natural world. In a tone that is …