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This fine book of poetry by David Blaikie - A Season in Lowertown - is a young man's odyssey through the bars, hotels, and creaking beds of Lowertown in the 1970s - one of the oldest districts in Canada's national capital. David Blaikie fled a marriage he got into too young and spent a memorable but introspective year in the "unpretty and undomestic" bars, hotels, and creaking beds of Lowertown in the 1970s - one of the oldest districts of Canada's national capital, not far from Parliament Hill and the landmark Chateau Laurier Hotel. The neighbourhood still had the feel of early Canada, memories of loggers who had danced and drowned on log booms, of nuns and prime ministers who had prowled its streets, and the ghost of Colonel John By, the sadistic genius who built the entire Rideau Canal in six short years at a cost of a thousand dead labourers. It was just before the developers came "with their aftershave and blueprints / and remade it in the image of the board of trade" into the Byward Market of today. Blaikie lived in a back street room, spent "long afternoons" at the Chez Lucien Hotel, a since-razed landmark with "more stories than god could tell," and ate at all-night diners "with women out to make a buck / and men with wallets on a chain." He also saw the last of Le Hibou, the famous Ottawa coffee house that in its day featured everyone from Leonard Cohen and Irving Layton to Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, and Joni Mitchell, plus an array of local artists like William Hawkins, a man "who stapled poetry to light poles / and drove a Blue Line cab."This award-winning collection of poems also recalls the nightlife of Hull (now Gatineau), across the Ottawa River, where Blaikie got "busted one night / by the drug squad there" and was carted off to "the dark Hull jail / somewhere up Saint-François" - and spent "a sleepless night there / plotting naïve revenge." He also frequented the raucous main drag of Vanier to the east, which pulsed with strip clubs, hotels, and motorcycle gangs, or when all else had closed for the night, an illegal blind pig up Bradley Street "where noiseless shadows fell / and moonlight wept / on dented cars." Through it all he threads the poignant demise of his marriage to a young school teacher and her departure to the West Coast of Canada, as well as his enduring friendship with "a radio man" named Alan who likewise had "a woman back there / in his rearview life" and was looking in bottles and books to find himself.

"On Small Wings" by Wendy Jean MacLean is a "Don Gutteridge Poetry Award" winning book. This book is cosmic and intimate, gritty and gentle: from the first moments of creation to the aching losses of dementia. These poems draw from nature's relentless promises of birth, death and change. Ranging from complicated ancestry to the simple joy of a rainy morning, these poems invite the reader to ponder the mysteries and beauty of eternity, in each day. This book is a must read.Award-winning poet Wendy Jean MacLean offers the reader a moment to pause, reflect and contemplate on the wonderous fragility of life. With birds as messengers, the winged ones provide a metaphor for "the strange migrations of life and death and the echoes 'round the corner'"(Introduction to the book).The collection of seventy poems crafted during the COVID isolation, speaks to our vulnerability, our hope, and our visions for a new future, be it in life or death. It is not a book to be rushed or read through from cover to cover in one or two sittings. Rather each poem invites the reader to speak it out loud and allow the ear to absorb the nuances of rhythm, the juxtaposition of imagery, and the emotional intention in the stanzas. Excerpt from Review by Deborah Dunleavy

"Through Yonder Window Breaks" by Antony Di Nardo is a "Don Gutteridge Poetry Award" winner. Di Nardo writes "I've confused the words around my house // With the words inside my head." The glow of sunlight, moonlight and all that they reveal is on display. These poems are curious about the world and nurture a relationship with it, blend both light and dark within the poet's inner space. And the reader, from poem to poem, can see right through it.A window breaks and words shatter inside the poet's head and a poem appears as the words are re-arranged. A poet might liken that to "seeing the light." How quaint to say that, or speak of it as "light through yonder window breaks." Another poet long ago, the great bard of the boards, said it was the sun and its lover. But in this slim volume the poet is cut in two by windows and the poems that appear consist of interiors, exteriors, and combinations of the two that only imagination makes possible. As Di Nardo writes in this new collection, "I've confused the words around my house // With the words inside my head." These poems crack the light at windows, refract the one that burns in a poet's imagination. The invisible is made visible. The glow of sunlight, moonlight and all that they reveal is on display. These poems are curious about the natural world and interested in nurturing a relationship with it. Windows are "like jazz, they don't discriminate between light and dark" - rather, they blend the two to harmonize and syncopate within grey matter, the poet's inner space. And like any innocent bystander ready to bear witness, the reader, from line to line, poem to poem, can see right through that space. The poems frame reflections, observations, in language that is straightforward and transparent. Images are layered; the syntax playful. These are poems that "winter begins" and "long sighs never leave out of breath." Poems that provide "a place to sit before we leave." In the poem, "Zooming", Di Nardo writes, "At this distance you cannot feel / the beauty of my heart." The beauty of his heart is felt in every poem this book contains. Read them, and read them again.

"The Better Part of Some Time" by Mike Madill is a "Don Gutteridge Poetry Award" winner. In this debut poetry collection, Mike Madill recalls poignant moments from childhood before diving headlong into his father's death. Through his grief, he and the reader ultimately discover acceptance and hope. "No guarantee / a soul won't spill / instead of float", writes Mike Madill in his debut book, The Better Part of Some Time, setting an evocative and at times existential tone that carries throughout this raw and gritty poetry collection. In the opening section, he recalls poignant memories from his childhood. With shades of Robyn Sarah's My Shoes Are Killing Me, he conveys the resilient but bittersweet nature of these memories, as in "Smile, they urge, / as if I'm currency", while "I swivel back and forth between / imaginary blue-lines" captures the often bewildering demands of growing up. The middle section's poems share Madill's struggle with the death of his father. Combined with his clinical depression, he was left feeling overwhelmed as to how to face this crisis, much less the world anew. He captures a striking depth of loss and confusion without veering into melodrama, making it reminiscent of Tim Bowling's The Witness Ghost or Richard Harrison's On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood. He honours both his father's strengths and his quirks despite his grief, paying tribute to the man's enduring sense of humour, even while facing the challenges from multiple diagnoses: "It was the old you again, cracking jokes, / pulling your Crazy Guggenheim / face at us in our Isolation gowns." Embodied in the final poems is a renewal of hope borne of experiences lived far more fully since Madill's 'dark night of the soul', calling to mind Louise Gluck's The Wild Iris. Having learned to embrace the darkness, he deftly traces his journey to maturity and greater self-awareness. Discovering he is able to not only persevere, but adapt and grow as both a writer and a man, he finds a new kind of freedom, evoked in his lines: "Embrace the blackness, / squeeze until the light / bursts from pores / and the fear of falling / falls away." With an engaging and grounded style, these poems will resonate with anyone who has struggled with depression or knows a loved one who has, and prove that, yes, the world will continue to spin, even if not as we might expect. Mike Madill shows us what it means to be human, with adversities to surmount as well as those moments worth celebrating.

African author, Darrell Nkholoma Phiri, brings us, The Epidemic, a stunning pandemic novel for all times. Written four years before the covid pandemic shook the world this book now resonates more than expected. Every reader will relate on many levels.The Epidemic is a political war drama with events based around the fear of a pandemic. Follow three different men from very different backgrounds as they weave their way through their own personal dramas. A politically motivated business man, a Syrian General and a general labourer, all with different motivations and struggles for their survival. The Epidemic follows three totally different men through personal and political upheaval. One, an orphan African boy, come businessman, come politician. Two, a recovering from amnesia, General of the Syrian Army. Three, an unskilled labourer running from his past infidelities. Which one of these three characters do you identify with? Are any of the three of them redeemable as they weave their way through the power politics of a pandemic world that could kill them?

Hearthbeat: Poems of Family and Hometown is an anthology of poetry with authors: Lee Beavington, Sharon Berg, Ariane Blackman, William Bonnell, Ronnie R. Brown, April Bulmer, Lidia Chiarelli, Robert Currie, Chip Dameron, James Deahl, Bernadette Gabay Dyer, Daniela Elza, Lesley-Anne Evans, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Roy Geiger, Katherine L. Gordon, Elizabeth Greene, Andreas Gripp, Richard M. Grove, Richard Harrison, Farideh Hassanzadeh, Rhoda Hassmann, Laurence Hutchman, Keith Inman, Debbie Okun Hill, Keith Inman, Ellen S. Jaffe, Betsy Joseph, Paul Kelley, Glenn Kletke, Ruth Latta, Donna Langevin, John B. Lee, John Di Leonardo, Lisa Makarchuk, David Malone, Blaine Marchand, Callista Markotich, Elizabeth McCallister, Susan McMaster, Roger Nash, Chris Pannell, David Pratt, Sally Quon, Kathy Robertson, Peggy Roffey, Linda Rogers, Basudhara Roy, Guy Simser, K.V. Skene, Nathalie Sorensen, Glen Sorestad, Dawn Steiner, Max Vandersteen, Wendy Visser, Brian T. W. Way, Elana Wolff, Ed Woods, Anna Yin.Edited by Canadian poet, Don Gutteridge.

Poems by 4 Canadian Poets:4 Authors: John B. Lee - Canadian - November 24th, 1951 Antony Di Nardo - Canadian - October 2, 1949 Laurence Hutchman - Canadian - July 4, 1948 Richard Marvin Grove - Canadian - October 07, 1953

By & By brings together two Canadian poetry icons into one book. This is a wonderful collaboration that should never be forget. One of Canada's finest collection of poetry.

Antony Di Nardo''s fifth collection of poetry confronts questions of whether what goes missing is gone for good and what it means to be immortalized. Rituals of loss are explored and iterated. Our vain dismissal of the natural world as something that exists apart from us is put on hold. Regardless how dire, there is no lack of wit or humour in these poems. His language has a mind of its own. He writes "accuracy and algorithms are not for poets/... a poet just gets lucky and finds what''s missing." GONE MISSNG is also a survey of "things that don''t belong," steeped in language that surprises as well as juxtaposes the mundane to the ecstatic. Di Nardo''s poetry might revel in the absurd, but it is as essential as seeing without eyes, poems "incumbent on/what reveals/the earth ..." These are poems that renew the plain and simple with imagery that sticks like Velcro to mind and memory.In Gone Missng, Di Nardo''s language has a mind of its own. He writes "accuracy and algorithms are not for poets ... a poet just gets lucky and finds what''s missing."

The poems in "A Breeze You Whisper" are meteors: dense, compact stories created on wings of emotion and myth - more real than reality. They collapse time, merging past and present, resulting in no-time, in all-time. Taken together, the poems in A Breeze You Whisper reveal a journey from innocence to transcendence, expressed metaphorically through the sections: East, South, West, North, and Above & Below. Readers will identify with the universality of Kathryn MacDonald's passion and vision.

Paper and Rags follows the stories of many of the characters first introduced in Bottle and Glass, as they struggle to make lives for themselves in post-war Kingston, a time when civil unrest and political reform simmer. Young Jeremy Castor, forced into the Royal Navy by a press gang, is discharged and cast adrift. To survive and support his ailing mother, he must make difficult choices about how to earn a living. Along the way he meets three strong, beguiling women -- Amelia, Lilac, and Lenore -- each breaking from society's shackles in her own unique way. The four become entwined with the mysterious Dr. Scriven who has come to Kingston from England to escape his shameful past. Scriven decides that founding a newspaper is the only way of setting his personal record straight. In the face of a severe paper shortage, Jeremy and the others come together, sacrificing the very shirts from their backs, to make the paper that will see Scriven's truth in print. Even so, the eventual discovery of Scriven's secret and its publication in the local Gazette changes their lives forever.