A ‘best of’ list of 2025 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my fifteenth annual list [see also: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and her original prompt. See the full thing over here.

My list this year includes works by: Joel Katelnikoff, Matthew Gwathmey, Michael Boughn, DM Bradford, Eva H.D., Em Dial, Tea Gerbeza, Oana Avasilichioaei, Monroe Lawrence, Sean Howard, Farah Ghafoor, Terese Mason Pierre, J.R. Carpenter, Anna Veprinska, Jake Byrne, Tolu Oloruntoba, Zane Koss, Adam Haiun, Mahaila Smith, Jessica Bebenek, Michael Chang, Jessica Popeski, Karen Solie, Jessi MacEachern, Kyo Lee, Cecily Nicholson, Junie Désil, Hajer Mirwali, Amy LeBlanc, Jeff Derksen, Natalie Lim, Jumoke Verissimo, Paul Vermeersch, Gillian Sze, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Steffi Tad-y, Isabella Wang, Guy Birchard, MA│DE, Qurat Dar, Anna Swanson, Jane Shi, Manahil Bandukwala, Emily Austin, Sabyasachi (Sachi) Nag, Stephanie Bolster, Christina Shah, Natalie Rice, Ronna Bloom, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Fenn Stewart, Rahat Kurd, Scott Jackshaw, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Drew McEwan, ryan fitzpatrick and Eric Schmaltz.

A ‘best of’ list of 2024 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. See my fourteenth annual list over at the dusie blog here, along with links to all of my prior lists. Can you believe it has been fourteen years since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same? Once again, I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and her original prompt.

This year’s list features a small handful of non-fiction/prose titles, and more than fifty full-length poetry titles by Fawn Parker, M.W. Jaeggle, Robert Coleman, Chimwemwe Undi, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Rob Manery, Allie Duff, Nicholas Bradley, Chuqiao Yang, Johanna Skibsrud, Matt Rader, Sarah Burgoyne & Vi Khi Nao, Kim Trainor, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Faith Arkorful, Bren Simmers, Hamish Ballantyne, Michael Turner, Sylvia Legris, Shō Yamagushiku, Concetta Principe, Margaret Christakos, Dawn Macdonald, Simina Banu, Domenica Martinello, Tia McLennan, Jennifer May Newhook, Michael Goodfellow, Britta Badour, R Kolewe, Tonya Lailey, jaz papadopoulos, Ben Robinson (twice!), Clare Goulet, Chris Turnbull, Stuart Ross, Melanie Siebert, Keagan Hawthorne, AJ Dolman, Dale Martin Smith, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Zoe Whittall, Kevin Stebner and Jaclyn Piudik. Go take a look at my amazing list! With direct links to each of the publisher's page to order direct, as well as to my original review as well.

Han VanderHart lists my World's End, (ARP Books) in their "Ten Remarkable Small Press Titles I Read This Year" list!

American poet, critic, editor and publisher Han VanderHart was good enough to include my World's End, (ARP Books, 2023) on their "Ten Remarkable Small Press Titles I Read This Year" list! Thanks so much! I'm so rarely on lists, so this is even further exciting, certainly (and I clearly need to catch up on the other nine titles included). And if such intrigues, you should check out when VanderHart interviewed me earlier this year for an episode of the On Poetry Podcast, yes?

A ‘best of’ list of 2023 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my thirteenth annual list [see also: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and her original prompt.

It does feel as though I’ve done far fewer reviews this year than across the prior few, overloaded with a couple of large non-fiction projects and various other book deadlines, etcetera. There were plenty of books I simply didn’t manage to get to yet; or are there simply more books? There is still a handful of titles from this year I have yet to get to, certainly (including the new Judith Copithorne, which looks brilliant), but unless I do a count, I haven’t a clue how many reviews I’ve actually managed. The fact that I’ve “only” thirty-eight on this list (compared to other years) suggests to me that I haven’t reviewed nearly as much this year as I’ve done prior (which I’ve suspected throughout the year, simply busy with other things; and there are certain Canadian publishers that simply haven’t been sending books along, frustratingly), although my count shows I’ve posted some one hundred and forty book reviews across 2023, which is quite a lot. I’m pleased I managed to get a mound of chapbook reviews posted, as well as some journal reviews (something I hadn’t been doing nearly as much across the year or two prior), composing reviews of The Capilano Review : 50th Anniversary Issue(s) : 3:46-3:48 [see my review here], SOME : sixth issue [see my review here], filling Station #81 : Some Kind of Dopamine Hit [see my review here] and SOME: seventh issue [see my review here]. There’s also been a plethora of worthy non-fiction prose reviews I’ve posted, with stellar works including INDIGIQUEERNESS: Joshua Whitehead In Dialogue with Angie Abdou (Athabasca University Press, 2023) [see my review of such here], Gail Scott, Furniture Music: A Northern in Manhattan: Poets/Politics [2008-2012] (Wave Books, 2023) [see my review of such here] and Jim Johnstone, Write Print Fold and Staple: On Poetry and Micropress in Canada (Gaspereau Press, 2023) [see my review of such here].

Barry McKinnon died this past year, so that was a bit of a hit [see my obituary for him here].

I wonder, occasionally, if I should be working similar ‘best of’ lists for chapbooks, or American full-length collections, or fiction, or a geographically-unspecified list of full-length collections, but then I remember that this list takes a full day to compile and post, so there you go. And you know this list always includes a few stragglers from the year prior, yes? I mean, I can only do so much during a calendar year. Beyond that, I always mean for these lists to be shorter, but I couldn’t think of a list without including every book on this list. Is there simply too much exciting work being produced right now?

This year’s list includes full-length poetry titles by Dale Tracy, Khashayar Mohammadi/Saeed Tavanaee Marvi, Manahil Bandukwala, David Dowker, Erin Robinsong, natalie hanna, Jason Purcell, ryan fitzpatrick, Milton Acorn and bill bissett, George Bowering, Dennis Cooley, Jen Currin, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Kate Siklosi, Gary Barwin and Lillian Nećakov, Camille Martin, Matthew Hollett, Laila Malik, Emily Osborne, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Weyman Chan, Alycia Pirmohamed, Amy Ching-Yan Lam, Kate Cayley, Jake Byrne, Natalie Rice, Tom Cull, David Martin, Erín Moure, Adam Beardsworth, Jim Johnstone, Amanda Earl, Shane Book, Sandra Ridley, andrea bennett, Nikki Reimer, Ben Meyerson and Matthew Gwathmey.

See this year's full list here.

A ‘best of’ list of 2022 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my twelfth annual list [see also: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and her original prompt.

I can’t get to everything (and the fact that I keep trying is seeming to be increasingly ridiculous), which means there are multiple titles this year I haven’t managed to properly respond to, including Lisa Robertson’s Boat (Coach House Books, 2022), Dale Tracy’s Derelict Bicycles (Anvil Press, 2022) or Manahil Bandukwala’s MONUMENT (Brick Books, 2022) (among others, I’m sure). And didn’t Kasia Van Schaik’s short story collection We Have Never Lived On Earth (University of Alberta Press, 2022) just land on my doorstep as I was compiling this very list? And Stuart Ross’ I Am Claude François and You Are A Bathtub (Anvil Press, 2022)! There’s been some remarkable non-fiction by Canadian writers that I’ve managed to get to this year: Stuart Ross’ The Book of Grief and Hamburgers (ECW Press, 2022)[see my review of such here], Sina Queyras’ Rooms: Women, Writing, Woolf (Coach House Books, 2022) [see my review of such here], Emma Healey’s Best Young Woman Job Book: A Memoir (Random House Canada, 2022) [see my review of such here] and Tree Abraham’s Cyclettes (Book*hug, 2022) [see my review of such here]. Otherwise, between my own blog and what I’ve managed via periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, I’ve posted more than one hundred and fifty book reviews this past year, and managed more than one hundred and fifty posted interviews as well, between my ’12 or 20 (second series) questions’ series, the bibliography series and via Touch the Donkey. And did you see I’ve started a substack for the sake of prompting a book-length essay I’ve had in my head recently? Or that my chapbook press, above/ground press, turns THIRTY YEARS OLD THIS YEAR? Oh, and that I’ve published two books this past year: the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press) and essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press)? So many things!

This year’s list includes full-length poetry titles by R. Kolewe, Kate Siklosi, Gary Barwin and Tom Prime, Sylvia Legris, Michael Trussler, Chantal Gibson, Ellie Sawatzky, Zane Koss, Sarah de Leeuw, Daniel Sarah Karasik, Mikko Harvey, Laurie D. Graham, Phoebe Wang, Jim Johnstone, Matthew James Weigel, Madhur Anand, Andrew Faulkner, Gillian Sze, Nancy Holmes, Ayaz Pirani, Catriona Strang, Nicole Markotić, Arleen Paré, Prathna Lor, Annharte, Nanci Lee, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Gary Barwin and Gregory Betts, Ivan Drury, Alisha Kaplan, Stephen Brockwell, Tasnuva Hayden, Michael Goodfellow, Michael Crummey, Luke Hathaway, Victoria Mbabazi, Annick MacAskill, Conyer Clayton, Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin, Derek Beaulieu, Nicole Brossard, Kristjana Gunnars, Gary Barwin, Natalie Wee, Sarah Ens, Kate Hargreaves, Sophie Crocker, River Halen, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Cameron Anstee, Cecily Nicholson, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Phil Hall, Edward Byrne and Amy Dennis. I mean, that’s a lot, right?

Make sure to catch this year's entire list here!

A ‘best of’ list of 2021 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my eleventh annual list [see also: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and her original prompt.

I’ve reviewed and posted more than one hundred and forty poetry titles (most on the blog, but some over at periodicities) over the past calendar year (not including chapbooks, non-fiction and fiction titles, literary journals, etcetera) and am well over twelve hundred interviews into the “12 or 20 questions” interviews over the past fourteen years (which is ridiculous, honestly). Naturally, I’m frustrated about all the books I haven’t quite got to yet, and there are more on that list than I’d like to admit to. There were so many things! Probably twenty or so full-length works by Canadian writers I had hoped to get to this year, but haven’t quite managed yet. Might 2022 be any different? I did take a couple of days around Christmas to read comics, and I’ve been working more on my novel (again) over the past month (and working through edits of my suite of pandemic essays, composed during those first three months of original lock-down). I mean, I do other things, right? Right.

This year’s list includes new full-length poetry titles by Paul Pearson, Christopher Patton, Sarah Venart, Lindsay B-e, Phil Hall, Jessi MacEachern, Therese Estacion, Janet Gallant and Sharon Thesen, Bardia Sinaee, Conor Mc Donnell, Dennis Cooley, Aaron Tucker, Stephen Collis, Khashayar Mohammadi, Mary Germaine, Roxanna Bennett, Ken Norris, Sarah Burgoyne, Tara Borin, Barbara Nickel, Selina Boan, Anna Van Valkenburg, Hoa Nguyen, Kama La Mackerel, Lillian Nećakov, Andrea Actis, Bren Simmers, Jen Sookfong Lee, Margaret Christakos, Larissa Lai, Anahita Jamali Rad, Leah Horlick, George Bowering, Nora Collen Fulton, Angela Szczepaniak, Liz Howard, Leanne Dunic, Megan Gail Coles, Colin Smith, David O’Meara, Kevin Andrew Heslop, Helen Hajnoczky, MLA Chernoff, Síle Englert, Dale Martin Smith, ryan fitzpatrick, Isabella Wang, Rita Wong, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, David Bradford, Assiyah Jamilla Touré, Tom Prime, Ken Belford and Camille Martin. How does this list manage to get so much longer every single year? See the full list over here, now posted up at the dusie blog.

A ‘best of’ list of 2020 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my tenth annual list [see also: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and the prompt that started me off in the first place.

Obviously, this has been a year of upsets, chaos and uncertainty (see also: my pandemic-specific essay-suite, essays in the face of uncertainties), especially given we’ve been on lock-down over here since March 13, and two young ladies learning remotely, with Aoife (currently closing in on five) in junior kindergarden and Rose (who turned seven a few weeks back) in grade two [see my post on such here], which is actually going better than one might have thought. Still, it wears. And after fifteen months of ALS, my widower father simply didn’t wake up on May 1^st [see my obituary for him here]. It is hard, a first Christmas post-parent, being away from sister and her family, and being unable to see eldest daughter as well, but we will more than make up for it once everything opens again. I am hoping for summer. As Doctor Who said in 2010: We are half-way out of the dark.

I’ve reviewed and posted more than one hundred and twenty poetry titles on the blog over the past calendar year (not including chapbooks, non-fiction and fiction titles, literary journals, etcetera) and am well over twelve hundred interviews into the “12 or 20 questions” interviews over the past thirteen years (which is ridiculous, honestly). Naturally, I’m frustrated about all the books I haven’t quite got to yet, including three (yes, three) new poetry titles this season by Dennis Cooley (I’m hoping to get a review figured out soon for periodicities), and other titles by Paul Zits, Noor Naga, Christopher Patton, Kama La Mackerel and most likely a dozen or two others that I would have liked to have managed to get reviewed this past year (some of which I’m still hoping to get to), but there’s only so much a boy can do, especially given all of this work is unpaid (naturally), I actually do my own writing also (do I?), and have two small humans underfoot (especially now).

I couldn’t get to everything, but I should also mention some stunning prose from the past year or so, including Driftpile Cree Nation writer Billy-Ray Belcourt’s non-fiction debut, A History of My Brief Body (Columbus OH: Two Dollar Radio, 2020) [see my review of such here], Kingston poet Sadiqa de Meijer’s alfabet/ alphabet: a memoir of a first language (Windsor ON: Palimpsest Press, 2020) [see my review of such here] and British Columbia writer Matt Rader’s Visual Inspection (Nightwood Editions, 2019) [see my review of such here]. And then there was WANTING EVERYTHING: The Collected Works of Gladys Hindmarch, edited by Deanna Fong and Karis Shearer (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2020) [see my review of such here] and Avant Desire: A Nicole Brossard Reader, eds. Sina Queyras, Geneviève Robichaud and Erin Wunker (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2020) [see my review of such here]. I mean, like, wow, right? So many things!

You can see the full list here, over at the Dusie blog, in which I discuss books by: Teva Harrison, Moez Surani, Sadiqa de Meijer, Paul Legault, Laiwan, Jami Macarty, Mercedes Eng, Simina Banu, Kyla Jamieson, Meredith Quartermain, Roger Farr, Dani Spinosa, Canisia Lubrin, Michael Dennis, Margaret Christakos, Lauren Turner, Ken Hunt, Rasiqra Revulva, Louis Cabri, Sarah Dowling,Ken Babstock, Phil Hall, Taryn Hubbard, Sachiko Murakami, Ian Williams, Cicely Belle Blain, Junie Désil, Colin Browne, Pearl Pirie, Angela Carr, Lise Downe, Fred Wah, jaye simpson,  Paul Vermeersch, Julie Joosten, Michael Dennis and Stuart Ross and Kate Sutherland.

A ‘best of’ list of 2019 Canadian poetry books

[Rose and Aoife with their new bunk bed; and newly-painted bedroom!]  

Here I go again. And who am I to go against tradition? Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my ninth annual list [see also: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and the prompting that started me off in the first place.

I’ve been far less active as a reviewer this past year as I might have wished, given I’m home with our two young ladies (Rose turned 6 in November, and Aoife turns 4 this coming April), and have been assisting with father-care on the homestead given his February diagnosis of ALS, and then Christine’s mini-stroke back in May and September bout of meningitis (I know, right? and she only returned to work last week, after such a long absence). But still: given how long this list is, maybe I should just calm the hell down? With a list forty titles long, it does seem ridiculous to suggest that I couldn’t list everyone, but I couldn’t list everyone! And I couldn’t short-change it, either. And, despite realizing I reviewed more than one hundred poetry titles on the blog over the past year (not including chapbooks, non-fiction and fiction titles, literary journals, etcetera), there are just so many good and great books appearing by Canadian poets these days (and I know there are many I wasn’t able to get to, as per usual). So the message is, clearly: stop being amazing, everyone!

You can see the full list here, over at the Dusie blog, in which I discuss books by Rita Wong and Fred Wah, Adrienne Gruber, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Kaie Kellough, Doyali Islam, Erín Moure, Karen Solie, Nicole Raziya Fong, Guy Birchard, Nikki Reimer, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Jason Christie, Ben Ladouceur, Matthew Gwathmey, Domenica Martinello, Aaron Vidaver, Rachel Zolf, Hugh Thomas, Mark Laba, Stuart Ross, Jay MillAr, Chris Banks, Jonathan Ball, Jacqueline Turner, K.B. Thors, Vincent Pagé, Marita Dachsel, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Tom Prime and Gary Barwin, Sonnet L’Abbé, Sean Braune, Gary Barwin, Nyla Matuk, Alex Leslie, Ken Hunt, Oana Avasilichioaei, Danielle LaFrance, George Bowering, nathan dueck and Nora Collen Fulton.

A ‘best of’ list of 2018 Canadian poetry books

Here I go again. And who am I to go against tradition? Well, the good traditions, anyway. Here is my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my eighth annual list [see also: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and the prompting that started me off in the first place.

I’ve been far less active as a reviewer this past year than I may have wished, given I’m home with our two young ladies (Rose turned 5 in November, and Aoife turns 3 this coming April). Two reviews a week is still a pretty hefty goal, and there are multiple books that I haven’t been able to get into (yet, he says, rather optimistically). Although my mounds of not-yet-reviewed are beginning to overwhelm my home office. I’ve books by my desk I haven’t had nearly a chance to get to, including Laurie Fuhr’s Night Flying (Frontenac House Poetry), Gwen Benaway’s Holy Wild (Book*hug), and most likely multiple other titles I just can’t see at the moment. I haven’t even seen a copy yet of Deportment: The Poetry of Alice Burdick, edited by Alessandro Porco (WLU Press), or Flow: Poems Collected and New by Roy Miki, edited by Michael Barnholden, beholden, by Fred Wah and Rita Wong or Treaty 6 Deixis, by Christine Stewart (Talonbooks). Perhaps, given how long this list actually is, you might be okay with the fact that I didn’t get to as much as I might have liked (otherwise you might be here all day). You can’t even imagine how long it takes me to compile and post these things as it is (but there you go).

And, even though they aren’t poetry, there were a couple of non-fiction titles I caught this year that were quite remarkable, including Vancouver poet, editor, critic and troublemaker Stephen Collis’ Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten (Talonbooks) [see my review of such here] and Vancouver writer and editor Chelene Knight’s Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir (Book*hug) [see my review of such here]. Both books are totally wow (that’s my completely accurate and official descriptor, by the by, for those titles [patent pending]).

Either way, what a year. We lost more than a few this year, including David W. McFadden (we miss you, uncle dave) and Priscila Uppal (that one was tough) and David Helwig. And American poet Marthe Reed. And Stan Lee, of course.

You can see the full list here, over at the Dusie blog, in which I discuss books by Nikki Sheppy, Jack Davis, angela rawlings, Emma Healey, Mikko Harvey, George Bowering/George Stanley, Cameron Anstee, Suzanne Zelazo, Emilia Nielsen, Annick MacAskill, Robin Richardson, Eve Joseph, Eric Schmaltz, Caroline Szpak, Paul Vermeersch, Julie Bruck, David Bromige, Mark Truscott, Michael Turner, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Allison Chisholm,  Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Julie McIsaac.