Neilson’s debut collection — only just now reading it, though I’ve known his work for years — is distinct, vibrant, and daring. He tackles his themes — men’s mental health, love — unapologetically.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #canadianpoetry #booksky #poetrysky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #canadianpoetry #booksky #poetrysky
Meniscus - Biblioasis
In the middle of his life, Robert Lowell wrote “Memories of West Street and Lepke,” a poem that reflected on Lowell’s recurrent manias and included the lines “My manic statement.” […]
www.biblioasis.com
September 26, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Neilson’s debut collection — only just now reading it, though I’ve known his work for years — is distinct, vibrant, and daring. He tackles his themes — men’s mental health, love — unapologetically.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #canadianpoetry #booksky #poetrysky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #canadianpoetry #booksky #poetrysky
What. A. Book.
“North” will definitely need a few re-reads to begin to scratch beneath its earths. Wonderful.
#booksky #poetry #irishpoetry #tinybookreviews #seamusheaney
“North” will definitely need a few re-reads to begin to scratch beneath its earths. Wonderful.
#booksky #poetry #irishpoetry #tinybookreviews #seamusheaney
North (Heritage Edition)
This edition of Seamus Heaney’s seminal fourth collection North, reproduced in its elegant first setting and original jacket, marks fifty years since first publication.
www.faber.co.uk
September 11, 2026 at 6:19 PM
What. A. Book.
“North” will definitely need a few re-reads to begin to scratch beneath its earths. Wonderful.
#booksky #poetry #irishpoetry #tinybookreviews #seamusheaney
“North” will definitely need a few re-reads to begin to scratch beneath its earths. Wonderful.
#booksky #poetry #irishpoetry #tinybookreviews #seamusheaney
I’m halfway through a (second) listen of Lincoln in the Bardo on audiobook. Calling this an audiobook feels inaccurate: it’s something more like a radio play, with an amazing cast. (Nick Offerman is particularly excellent.)
The original book is a great read as well.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
The original book is a great read as well.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
December 16, 2025 at 2:49 PM
I’m halfway through a (second) listen of Lincoln in the Bardo on audiobook. Calling this an audiobook feels inaccurate: it’s something more like a radio play, with an amazing cast. (Nick Offerman is particularly excellent.)
The original book is a great read as well.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
The original book is a great read as well.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
Not as useful as “Steering the Craft”, but an instructive read. In her essays and criticism, Le Guin can much funnier than she allows herself to be in her fiction, which is dour in spite of all of its obvious quality.
#tinybookreviews #booksky #fantasy #writingaboutwriting
#tinybookreviews #booksky #fantasy #writingaboutwriting
Ursula K. Le Guin — Cheek by Jowl
www.ursulakleguin.com
June 1, 2026 at 1:40 AM
Not as useful as “Steering the Craft”, but an instructive read. In her essays and criticism, Le Guin can much funnier than she allows herself to be in her fiction, which is dour in spite of all of its obvious quality.
#tinybookreviews #booksky #fantasy #writingaboutwriting
#tinybookreviews #booksky #fantasy #writingaboutwriting
Certainly one of my favourite recent collections. Shocking with its imagery. Erudite, but colloquial and visceral. The treatment of desire and otherness, while queer and rural on the page, is much bigger and more universal in the reading. Just wonderful.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #booksky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #booksky
Excerpts from a Burned Letter : Poems
DescriptionAward-winning writer Joelle Barron looks back at history through queer eyes in their second poetry collection. Excerpts from a Burned Letter places the experiences of historical figures and...
nightwoodeditions.com
February 22, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Certainly one of my favourite recent collections. Shocking with its imagery. Erudite, but colloquial and visceral. The treatment of desire and otherness, while queer and rural on the page, is much bigger and more universal in the reading. Just wonderful.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #booksky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit #booksky
Perhaps my favourite Muldoon so far. So inventive, so personal. I can’t think of another poet so unafraid of vocabulary, yet so natural with it. The language play is acrobatic, never ostentatious.
And the cover’s great. (So many poetry books have terrible covers.)
#poetry #booksky #tinybookreviews
And the cover’s great. (So many poetry books have terrible covers.)
#poetry #booksky #tinybookreviews
Horse Latitudes
The title of Horse Latitudes, Paul Muldoon's tenth collection of poetry, refers to those areas thirty degrees north and south of the equator where sailing sh...
us.macmillan.com
July 4, 2026 at 7:58 PM
Perhaps my favourite Muldoon so far. So inventive, so personal. I can’t think of another poet so unafraid of vocabulary, yet so natural with it. The language play is acrobatic, never ostentatious.
And the cover’s great. (So many poetry books have terrible covers.)
#poetry #booksky #tinybookreviews
And the cover’s great. (So many poetry books have terrible covers.)
#poetry #booksky #tinybookreviews
This book is full of allusions and references (classicial, biblical, Shakespearean), juxtapositions, and abstruseness. In other words, it's a good poet's poetry book, or a good academic's poetry book, which I don't mean as any insult.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit @griffinpoetryprize.bsky.social
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit @griffinpoetryprize.bsky.social
Devotional Forensics
Winner, Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian First Book Prize Shortlisted, Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize With dazzling wit and brittle tenderness, multi-award-winning poet Joseph Kidney catches all in his hig...
gooselane.com
July 12, 2026 at 7:07 PM
This book is full of allusions and references (classicial, biblical, Shakespearean), juxtapositions, and abstruseness. In other words, it's a good poet's poetry book, or a good academic's poetry book, which I don't mean as any insult.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit @griffinpoetryprize.bsky.social
#tinybookreviews #poetry #canlit @griffinpoetryprize.bsky.social
So much to learn from Heaney. Not that everyone should write about rural life in Ireland, but he gave people license to write what’s real to them. So much of today’s poetry - environmental poetry, confessional poetry, etc - owes itself to Heaney.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
Death of a Naturalist (Heritage Edition)
Seamus Heaney's classic collection reissued in a beautiful hardback edition with the original cover.
www.faber.co.uk
January 18, 2026 at 12:53 AM
So much to learn from Heaney. Not that everyone should write about rural life in Ireland, but he gave people license to write what’s real to them. So much of today’s poetry - environmental poetry, confessional poetry, etc - owes itself to Heaney.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
Nobody needs me to review this book,
cf. many award wins. But I think it’s worth talking about: Solie’s influence is all over Canadian poetry. Lyric verse at odds with contemporary life, with sides of small towns and runaway capitalism.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
cf. many award wins. But I think it’s worth talking about: Solie’s influence is all over Canadian poetry. Lyric verse at odds with contemporary life, with sides of small towns and runaway capitalism.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
Wellwater
WINNER OF T.S. ELIOT PRIZE WINNER OF GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE A Guardian, Financial Times, CBC, and Observer Best Book of 2025 The poems in Wellwater, Karen Soli...
houseofanansi.com
March 3, 2026 at 2:57 AM
Nobody needs me to review this book,
cf. many award wins. But I think it’s worth talking about: Solie’s influence is all over Canadian poetry. Lyric verse at odds with contemporary life, with sides of small towns and runaway capitalism.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
cf. many award wins. But I think it’s worth talking about: Solie’s influence is all over Canadian poetry. Lyric verse at odds with contemporary life, with sides of small towns and runaway capitalism.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
A D&D-inspired novel, about an adventurer who decides to hang up her great sword to start a coffee shop. Very readable, if it discordantly contemporary at times. Good characters, just enough peril, a quaint and subtle romantic subplot. Little violence or dungeon crawling.
#tinybookreviews #booksky
#tinybookreviews #booksky
Legends & Lattes (Bk. 1)
Get your copy of Legends & Lattes (Bk. 1) by Baldree, Travis at Book Outlet! Enjoy amazing savings on this captivating read.
bookoutlet.ca
January 9, 2026 at 3:36 PM
A D&D-inspired novel, about an adventurer who decides to hang up her great sword to start a coffee shop. Very readable, if it discordantly contemporary at times. Good characters, just enough peril, a quaint and subtle romantic subplot. Little violence or dungeon crawling.
#tinybookreviews #booksky
#tinybookreviews #booksky
Criticism is weird: opinions held very strongly in the vicinity of some poems. Vendler’s criticism depends heavily on canon and the bible, and so reads as a little antiquated now. But this books is an interesting display of one way to read poetry.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
Inhabit the Poem — Last Essays - Library of America
In this posthumous gift to poetry lovers, one of our foremost poetry critics revisits the work of a wide range of American, English, and Irish poets—from John Donne to Marianne Moore to Ocean Vuong—in...
www.loa.org
June 18, 2026 at 4:03 PM
Criticism is weird: opinions held very strongly in the vicinity of some poems. Vendler’s criticism depends heavily on canon and the bible, and so reads as a little antiquated now. But this books is an interesting display of one way to read poetry.
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
#tinybookreviews #poetry #booksky
Yesterday I posted a piece that posited a sameness in Canadian poetry. Cointerpoint: Sue Goyette’s Ocean. Perhaps my favourite book of Canadian poetry, Ocean is like nothing else, a poetic
novel-cum-history of nature’s agency and our relationship with it.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
novel-cum-history of nature’s agency and our relationship with it.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
Sue Goyette - Griffin Poetry Prize
Sue Goyette has published a novel and ten books of poems, including The Brief Reincarnation of a Girl, Penelope, Monoculture, and Ocean (for which she was shortlisted for the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize...
griffinpoetryprize.com
December 20, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Yesterday I posted a piece that posited a sameness in Canadian poetry. Cointerpoint: Sue Goyette’s Ocean. Perhaps my favourite book of Canadian poetry, Ocean is like nothing else, a poetic
novel-cum-history of nature’s agency and our relationship with it.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
novel-cum-history of nature’s agency and our relationship with it.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
Last book of the second trilogy: less of a ripping yarn than the first trilogy, and the wildly fractal inventiveness is toned down. Still enjoyable, but more in a filling-in-the-lore way, and a nice conclusion to Lyra’s story.
#tinybookreviews #booksky #hisdarkmaterials
#tinybookreviews #booksky #hisdarkmaterials
The Book of Dust: The Rose Field (Book of Dust, Volume 3) by Philip Pullman | Penguin Random House Canada
The breathtaking conclusion to Philip Pullman's Book of Dust! This landmark trilogy, set in the world readers first glimpsed in The Golden Compass, continues the story of Lyra: "one of fantasy's most ...
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
March 10, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Last book of the second trilogy: less of a ripping yarn than the first trilogy, and the wildly fractal inventiveness is toned down. Still enjoyable, but more in a filling-in-the-lore way, and a nice conclusion to Lyra’s story.
#tinybookreviews #booksky #hisdarkmaterials
#tinybookreviews #booksky #hisdarkmaterials
An interesting collection that will probably deserve/require a re-read. A vernacular of absurdity, somewhat reminiscent of Dean Young but with a Canadian flavour (whatever that means), layered on top of something resembling narrative.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
Crabwise to the Hounds
Winner of the Trillium Book Award for PoetryNominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Gerald Lampert Award. With cameos by jackalopes, Glenn Gould, homemade spaceships and Carl Linnaeus, these p...
chbooks.com
April 27, 2026 at 2:23 AM
An interesting collection that will probably deserve/require a re-read. A vernacular of absurdity, somewhat reminiscent of Dean Young but with a Canadian flavour (whatever that means), layered on top of something resembling narrative.
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
#poetry #canlit #tinybookreviews
I don't know that this book exactly succeeds in illuminating the sort of perseverance required to be a writer. But it is a delightful compendium of the miseries that have beset writers who are not me. 🙂
#tinybookreviews #biblioasis
#tinybookreviews #biblioasis
On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer - Biblioasis
Writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it. Failure is a topic discussed in every creative writing […]
www.biblioasis.com
April 21, 2026 at 2:07 PM
I don't know that this book exactly succeeds in illuminating the sort of perseverance required to be a writer. But it is a delightful compendium of the miseries that have beset writers who are not me. 🙂
#tinybookreviews #biblioasis
#tinybookreviews #biblioasis
Write a book about writing for mystery (artistic, not whodunnit): a tough mission, one not quite completed here. (This is a problem with several of the books in the “The Art of…” series.) I don’t know that I’ll be any more mysterious after this.
Still, readable.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
Still, readable.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
The Art of Mystery | Graywolf Press
The fourteenth volume in the Art of series conjures an ethereal subject: the idea of mystery in fiction. Mystery is not often discussed—apart from the genre—because, as Maud Casey says, “It’s not easy...
www.graywolfpress.org
July 30, 2026 at 4:41 PM
Write a book about writing for mystery (artistic, not whodunnit): a tough mission, one not quite completed here. (This is a problem with several of the books in the “The Art of…” series.) I don’t know that I’ll be any more mysterious after this.
Still, readable.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
Still, readable.
#booksky #tinybookreviews
For a meditation on death - not on mortality, but on death - this is hardly a drag at all. Lots of adept language, and only occasionally does this descend into preciousness. What’s a Griffin winner? I don’t know. But Night Watch is definitely worth a second read.
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
Night Watch by Kevin Young | Penguin Random House Canada
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY • WINNER OF THE GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • From the award-winning...
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
June 25, 2026 at 6:17 PM
For a meditation on death - not on mortality, but on death - this is hardly a drag at all. Lots of adept language, and only occasionally does this descend into preciousness. What’s a Griffin winner? I don’t know. But Night Watch is definitely worth a second read.
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
The best children’s fantasy series you’ve never heard of. The story of Assistant Pig Keeper Taran and his friends spans 5 wonderful books, which are exciting, funny, touching, and ultimately epic.
#tinybookreviews #booksky #Prydain #LloydAlexander
#tinybookreviews #booksky #Prydain #LloydAlexander
The Chronicles of Prydain | Series | Macmillan
About this Series
The Chronicles of Prydain have beco...
us.macmillan.com
January 16, 2026 at 9:06 PM
The best children’s fantasy series you’ve never heard of. The story of Assistant Pig Keeper Taran and his friends spans 5 wonderful books, which are exciting, funny, touching, and ultimately epic.
#tinybookreviews #booksky #Prydain #LloydAlexander
#tinybookreviews #booksky #Prydain #LloydAlexander
Sometimes I think modernism was a bothersome literary affectation. Plath is a bit better than most of it: the opacity and cleverdickishness are restrained, the reliance on allusion not so absolute, there is at least some mind given to the experience of reading.
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
Ariel: Introduced by Emily Berry
‘The world is blood-hot and personal’: in her moving and illuminating introduction, the poet Emily Berry remembers her own teenage encounters with Ariel.
www.faber.co.uk
August 6, 2026 at 4:50 PM
Sometimes I think modernism was a bothersome literary affectation. Plath is a bit better than most of it: the opacity and cleverdickishness are restrained, the reliance on allusion not so absolute, there is at least some mind given to the experience of reading.
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews
#booksky #poetry #tinybookreviews