Reviewed by Mormei Zanke Zachari Logan, Green (Radiant Press, 2024), 166 pp., $25. Say one were to pull Zachari Logan’s Green off a shelf and flip through it; the effect of letting the pages release under one’s thumb like a kineograph would illicit its own sensations even before one read the words...
Reviewed by Tawahum Bige Connor Lafortune and Lindsay Mayhew, eds., A Thousand Tiny Awakenings (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2025), 84 pp., $20.00. The term “activist poetry” elicits an array of connotations and responses. For many activated by the world around them, the term is a pigeonhole—used by...
Reviewed by Andrew Woodrow-Butcher Ben Ladouceur, I Remember Lights (Book*hug Press, 2025), 268 pp., $24.95. On October 22, 1977, Montreal police raided gay bars Truxx and Le Mystique, arresting all on-site staff and patrons in what was, at the time, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history...
Reviewed by Anne Perdue Leila Marshy, My Thievery of the People (Baraka Books, 2025), 185 pp., $24.95. In Leila Marshy’s The Philistine, (LLP, 2018)—a novel that explores issues of hereditary and sexual identity—a Palestinian-Canadian woman travels to Egypt in search of her father and falls in love...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai Tawahum Bige, Stages of Tanning Words and Remembering Spells: Part 1: Scraping Lungs Like Hides (Nightwood Editions, 2025), 96 pp., $19,95. jaye simpson, a body more tolerable (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025), 88 pp., $19.95. In two recently published collections, Two...
Reviewed by Jasmine Ruff Sarah Leavitt, Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024), 152 pp., $27.95. Sarah Leavitt’s Something, Not Nothing is a poignant and raw exploration of grief, art, and joy in the aftermath of tremendous loss. In this collection of short...
Reviewed by Kegan McFadden Keith Garebian, Stay (JLRB Press, 2024), 85 pp., $19.99. There are books you encounter, on occasion, that leave space for you… space where it can feel like you’re living alongside the poet, their accumulated line breaks and stanzas brush up against your own memories, so...
Reviewed by Jeffrey Canton Li Charmaine Anne, Crash Landing (Annick Press, 2024), 288 pp., $18.95. More and more adult readers are turning to young adult (YA) fiction. But young and old alike will enjoy Crash Landing, the 2024 debut novel by Li Charmaine Anne, which was last year’s winner of the...
Reviewed by Paul Leonard Makram Ayache (Arabic translation by Hiba Sleiman), The Green Line (Playwrights Canada Press, 2024), 176 pp., $19.95. Caleigh Crow, There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death, Or The Born-Again Crow (Playwrights Canada Press, 2023), 104 pp., $18.95...
Reviewed by Lisa Timpf Jes Battis, I Hate Parties (Nightwood Editions, 2024), 96 pp., $19.95. When I saw the title of Jes Battis’ poetry collection I Hate Parties, I knew this was a book I had to read. I Hate Parties is described in Nightwood Editions’ promotional materials as a collection that...
Reviewed by Anne Perdue Zoe Whittall, Wild Failure (HarperCollins Canada, 2024), 176 pp., $18.00. Through three books of poetry and six novels, Zoe Whittall’s been a wry, fearless chronicler of urban contemporary times, often through the lens of queer culture. In May, Whittall published her tenth...
Reviewed by Kegan McFadden Hannah Godfrey, Oubliette (Nevermore Press, 2023), 112 pp., $22.00. Grief is a punctuation mark. For some, it’s a period, and for others more lucky, a semi-colon… No matter what you find yourself grieving, there is a before and an after. In her recent collection...
Reviewed by Shannon Page Jade Wallace, Anomia (Palimpsest Press, 2024), 230 pp., $21.95. Readers of Jade Wallace’s poetry will recognize a familiar vibrancy of language and surrealism in Anomia. Sitting comfortably in the liminal space between genres, Wallace’s debut novel defies easy...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Hannah Templer, Cosmoknights (Book One) (Top Shelf Productions, 2019), 216 pp., $25.99, and Cosmoknights (Book Two) (Top Shelf Productions, 2023), 280 pp., $33.99. Readers will find Hannah Templer’s Cosmoknights a delightfully colourful queer space opera and heartfelt...
Reviewed by Jeffrey Canton Guy Babineau, Channel Surfing (Cormorant Books, 2024), 272 pp., $24.95. With a gift for potent characterization, a penchant for quirky detail, and a deep sense of LGBTQ2S+ history, Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness, the debut short-fiction collection from Vancouver...
Reviewed by Shannon Page Christina Cooke, Broughtupsy (House of Anansi Press, 2024), 240 pp., $22.99. Born in Jamaica, Christina Cooke is now a Canadian citizen living in New York City. Broughtupsy, her debut novel, is both a gritty, queer coming-of-age tale and a nuanced dissection of grief...
Reviewed by Andrew Woodrow-Butcher Greg Kearney, An Evening with Birdy O’Day (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024), 336 pp., $24.95. At 69 years old, Roland is long past the peak of his hairdressing career. And after 25 years together, he and his handsome, chronically ill boyfriend Tony have settled into a...
Reviewed by Trevor James McNeil Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer, Flung Out of Space (ABRAMS, 2022), 208 pp., $24.99 US. Greg Lockard and Tim Fish, Liebestrasse (Dark Horse Comics, 2022), 128 pp., $19.99 US. There is a notion among conservatives that LGBTQ2S+ folks have only existed since the 1960s—a...
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic Marcus McCann, Park Cruising: What Happens When We Wander Off the Path (House of Anansi, 2023), 352pp., $21.99. For the literal and figurative connotations alone, Marcus McCann chose a subtitle with broad appeal for Park Cruising, his book of eleven essays (and “In...
Reviewed by Anuja Varghese Steacy Easton, Daddy Lessons (Coach House Books, 2023), 160pp., $21.95. Content warning for childhood sexual abuse Steacy Easton’s memoir in “lessons” opens with a prologue that pulls no punches. Referring to the book, they state bluntly: “This is pornography in the sense...
Reviewed by Madelaine Caritas Longman T. Liem, Slows: Twice (Coach House Books, 2023), 96pp., $23.95. “[I]f you think an apocalypse // will eliminate the wealth gap, let us hold together the / premonition it will not,” reads a phrase from the poem “In Response to Feeling Alone; Or, Before and...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Daniel Allen Cox, I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah’s Witness (Penguin Random House Canada, 2023), 240pp., $32.95. Daniel Allen Cox’s memoir I Felt the End Before It Came is an inditement of the Watchtower Society and the Governing Body of the...
Reviewed by Cara Kauhane Andrew Kushnir & Khari Wendell McClelland, Moving the Centre (Talonbooks, 2022), 160 pp., $19.95. Moving the Centre consists of two documentary plays, “Small Axe” by Andrew Kushnir and “Freedom Singer” by Khari Wendell McClelland, as well as accompanying essays. Relying...
Reviewed by David Ly Meghan Kemp-Gee, The Animal in the Room (Coach House Books, 2023), 80 pp., $23,95. As a poet who is always interested in incorporating animals into my poetry—as they lend themselves particularly well to vivid imagery and nuanced metaphors—my curiosity was instantly piqued when...
Reviewed by Manahil Bandukwala Jhani Randhawa, Time Regime (Gaudy Boy LLC, 2022), 144 pp., $16 US. Jhani Randhawa’s debut poetry collection Time Regime is, as the title hints, a slow meander through time. This is evident from the very first poem of the collection, “Primavera,” in which Randhawa...
Reviewed by Micah Killjoy Carellin Brooks, Learned (Book*hug Press, 2022), 120 pp., $20. “Don’t you ever want to disappear?” asks Carellin Brooks’ Learned, a collection of bildungsroman poems that explores the world of a girl-turned-woman living as a Rhodes Scholar in mid-90’s Oxford. Learned’s...
Reviewed by Shannon Page Lor Gislason, Inside Out (Darklit Press, 2022), 112 pp., $19. Inspired by classic horror movies like Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake of The Blob, Lor Gislason’s debut novella Inside Out is gross and visceral. The story opens in a remote mining camp in British Columbia, as a...
Reviewed by seeley quest Trynne Delaney, the half-drowned (Metatron Press, 2022), 144 pp., $18. Near the end of Trynne Delaney’s first book, the half-drowned, comes a thematic question: What reality might hit after the end of belonging? The speculative fiction novella is set in a liminal future...
Reviewed by Melinda Roy Brian Francis, Missed Connections: A Memoir in Letters Never Sent (McClelland & Stewart, 2021), 240 pp., $24.95. I am a late bloomer. I came out as queer at 32 and was diagnosed with ADHD two years later. There were signs of both, which I can see when I look back; my...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai Manahil Bandukwala, Monument (Brick Books, 2022), 96 pp., $22.95. In her debut poetry collection Monument, Manahil Bandukwala immortalizes the historical Mumtaz Mahal, empress consort of the Mughal Empire, who is most often known as the woman for whose burial...
Reviewed by Vange Holtz Schramek Hannah McGregor, A Sentimental Education (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2022), 176 pp., $24.99. The full-scale uptake of social media since the rise of mega platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have led to many critiques of Millennials and Generation...
Reviewed by Leah Bobet Isaac Fellman, Dead Collections (Penguin Random House, 2022), 256 pp., $17 US. If Dead Collections was a space, it would be an archive, or perhaps a human heart: rich, moody, and funny, built with infinite care. This literary supernatural novel takes on the carefully...
Reviewed by Michaela Stephen Natalie Wee, Beast at Every Threshold (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), 104 pp., $17.95. In her sophomore poetry collection Beast at Every Threshold (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), Natalie Wee offers an exploration of desire, grief, and history with evocative, sensual, and...
Reviewed by Anuja Varghese Helen Chau Bradley, Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press, 2021), 216 pp., $18.95. Helen Chau Bradley’s fiction debut Personal Attention Roleplay opens with the line, “I first fell in love with a girl to the theme song of Top Gun.” The story, titled “Maverick,” is...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Adam McOmber, The Ghost Finders (JournalStone, 2021), 238 pp., $20.95 US. Adam McOmber’s third novel, The Ghost Finders, is entertaining, spooky gothic fare steeped in gas-lit (in the traditional sense) Edwardian London with a queer, character-driven story arc. His...
Reviewed by Manahil Bandukwala Isabella Wang, Pebble Swing (Harbour Publishing, 2021), 112 pp., $18.95. In her debut collection Pebble Swing, Isabella Wang writes with remarkable and lyrical skill that echoes the influences of literary forebearers such as Li Bai and Phyllis Webb. The poems span...
Reviewed by Khashayar Mohammadi Anahita Jamali Rad, still (Talonbooks, 2021), 112 pp., $16.95. “It is true, poetry still cannot stop tanks,” Ma Yan writes in I Name Him Me, “but that poetry attempts to stop tanks is its reach.” It is perhaps pessimistic to begin at the limits of poetry; it may seem...
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic Kate Cayley, Householders (Biblioasis, 2021), 235 pp., $22.95. An exceptional volume of stories, Householders warrants applause—and readers, of course. Following How You Were Born (2014), Toronto’s Kate Cayley showcases virtuosic writing and captivating settings...
Reviewed by Lucian Childs William di Canzio, Alec (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 352 pp., $27.00 US. I’m a sucker for gay love stories. They’re a sensuous, sugary hit of pure emotion. William di Canzio’s Alec is not without problems—like its source material, E. M. Forster’s posthumously...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai Nisha Patel, Coconut (NeWest Press, 2021), 108 pp., $19.95. Nisha Patel’s poetry debut, Coconut, reflects on the multifaceted experiences of queerness, race, womanhood, fatphobia, and familial relationships. The collection contains moments of both introspection...
