ArticlesAriel Gordon
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg/Treaty 1 Territory–based writer, editor, and enthusiast. Her latest book is the spec-fic novel Blood Letters, co-authored with GMB Chomichuk (Great Plains Press). Her work was selected for Best Canadian Essays 2025 (ed. Emily Urquhart) and will be in Best Canadian Poetry 2026 (ed. Mary Dalton).
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PoetryDebut was formed through ‘natural cadence’ of creativity, spread over decades
Carol Harvey Steski’s debut collection of poetry, rump + flank, was a long time in the making. “I want people to know that this book has been in the works for a quarter of a century, so emerging writers: don’t give up!!” says the Toronto-based writer, who works in corporate communications. -
PoetryCollection reflects ‘the chaos of healing’ through grief and trauma
Putting out a collection of poetry during the coronavirus pandemic is difficult, but Rayanne Haines has become used to working through trauma in her life and in her art. -
PoetryCollection marks moment poet moved hobby to centre stage
Life changed for Edmonton spoken word poet Nisha Patel when she quit her day job. “When I worked as a political advisor, I worked exactly 35 hours a week and did poetry on the side as a hobby,” says Patel. -
FeaturesFifth poetry collection from Halfe is fresh, pure fun
The year 2021 will be a momentous one for Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer, raised on Saddle Lake Reserve in Saskatchewan and based near Saskatoon. Halfe has a new collection, awâsis – kinky and dishevelled, coming out this spring. -
PoetrySelf-declared trickster poet now leading quieter life, with more energy for his own work
Over the 40 years of his career, Winnipeg’s Dennis Cooley has been a professor of English at the University of Manitoba and a publisher/editor at Turnstone Press, among many other titles. But the role he most identifies with is trickster poet. -
PoetryDuncan Mercredi’s ‘weird way of looking at life and land’ collected in retrospective
Duncan Mercredi’s biography is straightforward. He’s a Cree/Métis writer and storyteller originally from Misipawistik (Grand Rapids), Manitoba, and the current Poet Laureate of Winnipeg. But these lines, taken from the poetic afterword to Mercredi’s upcoming new and selected, mahikan ka onot: The Poetry of Duncan Mercredi, are a much better introduction ... -
PoetryCommitting to writing meant committing to a place - and then leaving it
Joel Robert Ferguson took a somewhat circuitous route to publishing his debut poetry collection, The Lost Cafeteria. Ferguson was raised in a conservative Christian home in rural Nova Scotia but spent his 20s enmeshed in what he calls the “anarcho-punk/traveller milieu.” -
FeaturesFourth poetry collection honours intense suffering and immeasurable beauty
A member of the Barren Lands (Cree) First Nation, writer Randy Lundy is based in Pense, Saskatchewan. This spring, Lundy is publishing his fourth collection of poetry, Field Notes for the Self, with the University of Regina Press’s Oskana Poetry & Poetics series edited by Jan Zwicky. -
PoetryThis is what happens when Jonathan Ball aims for “a very normal poetry book”
Winnipeg-based writer Jonathan Ball calls himself the Poet Laureate of Hell, which is Ball in a nutshell: fun, inventive, and kind of dark. For Ball, it signals to readers that he doesn’t write conventional poems. “The weird Venn diagram I’m after is the audience that loves poetry but is sick to death of poetry,” Ball says. -
FeaturesPoetic fragments from non-fiction Namibian travel book grow into their own collection
Peter Midgley could be said to be a hybrid writer – he works in multiple genres, publishing non-fiction, children’s lit, plays, and poetry. “I do not consciously set out to write a children’s story, or a poem,” says the Edmonton-based author. “I write. Sometimes, the form emerges from within the words. Sometimes, it appears in multiple forms.”
