The best Canadian poetry of 2021

Here are the picks byCBC Booksfor the top Canadian poetryof 2021.

Satchedby Megan Gail Coles

Named after a local word meaning "soaked through" or "weighed down,"Satchedis a poetry collection that explores intergenerational trauma, ecological grief and late-stage capitalism from the perspective of a woman of rural-remote, Northern, working class and mixed ancestry.

• Megan Gail Coles's Satched is a poetic look at the trauma, grief and joy of life on the East Coast

Megan Gail Coles is an author and playwright originally from Savage Cove, N.L., and currently livingin Montreal whereshe is a PhD candidate at Concordia University. She is also the author of the short story collectionEating Habits of the Chronically Lonesomeand the novelSmall Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Clubwhichwas a finalist for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was defended by YouTuber Alayna Fender onCanada Reads2020.

17:53Megan Gail Coles on Satched

Megan Gail Coles talks to Shelagh Rogers about her poetry collection, Satched.

Romantic by Mark Callanan

Romantic is a poetry collection that leverages seemingly disparate themes including Arthurian myth, the Romantic poets, the ill-fated "Great War" efforts of the Newfoundland Regiment, modern parenthood, 16-bit video gamesand Major League Baseball.Romantictakes these topics andengages in an introspective look at western society and how we define identity and collectivism.

Mark Callanan is a St. John's poet andauthor of two previous poetry collections,Gift HorseandScarecrow,as well as two poetry chapbooks,SkylarkingandSea Legend. He was a founding editor of the St. John's-based literary journalRiddle Fence and was the co-editor ofThe Breakwater Book of Contemporary Newfoundland Poetry.

Ideas53:32Writing From The Rock

At Montreal's 2012 Blue Metropolis Literary Festival, IDEAS host Paul Kennedy discusses the recent renaissance in Newfoundland writing with poet Mary Dalton, novelist Kathleen Winter, and poet Mark Callanan. Why do Newfoundland writers punch above their weight? Is it something they put in the water?

Make the World New by Lillian Allen, edited by Ronald Cummings

Make the World Newis a collection of poetry based on the most notable work of poet and author Lillian Allen. It is a selection of new and uncollected poetry and also features poemsfrom hercollectionsRhythm an' Hardtimes, Women Do This EverydayandPsychic Unrest.Allen's poetry often focuses in on the totality of Black life and the unique experiences of those from the Black diaspora.

• 'Hold your tender, tender heart': poet d'bi.young anitafrika's stirring tribute to Black women everywhere

Allenis one of the leading creative Black feminist voices in Canada, a two-time Juno award-winning recording artist, dub poet, anda professor at Toronto's OCAD University. She is also the author ofRhythm an' Hardtimes and Women Do This Everyday.Her musical work includesalbumsConditions Critical, Revolutionary Tea PartyandAnxiety.

8:50George Murray on Problematica

George Murray talks to Shelagh Rogers about his poetry collection, Problematica.

Garden Physic bySylvia Legris

Garden Physicis a poetry collection dedicated to the joy of tending to one's garden. Using florid language and poetic verse,Garden Physicrevels in the pleasures of nature, weather and colour and how the garden functions as a place of growth and healing.

Sylvia Legrisis a Saskatoon poet and author originally from Winnipeg. She has published several volumes of poetry, including The Hideous Hidden andNerve Squall, whichwon the 2006 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Pat Lowther Award.

The Next Chapter16:32Louise B. Halfe Sky Dancer on awsis kinky and dishevelled

The Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe Skydancer, who was recently appointed Canada's ninth parliamentary poet laureate, talks to Shelagh Rogers about her latest collection, awsis kinky and dishevelled.

Problematicaby George Murray

Problematicais a collection of poems, both new and previously published, from George Murray's 25-year writing career. The collection includes everything from early narrative poems to lyrical explorations of the metaphysical to investigations of the colloquial and contemporary.

• George Murray looks back at 25 years of writing poetry with Problematica

Murray is a poet who has published eight books of poetry. He is a former poetry editor for the Literary Review of Canada and was the poet laureate of St. John's in 2014. He is currently the editor of NewPoetry.ca and lives in St. John's.

13:04Olive Senior on Pandemic Poems: First Wave

Olive Senior talks to Shelagh Rogers about her latest poetry collection, Pandemic Poems: First Wave.

Lurchby Don McKay

Don McKayinvokes "the profane wonders of the wilderness" in his poetry, exploringthe awe-inspiring, often "unsayable" natural wonders of the world from rivers and trees to lichen and birdsong. The poetry lurches with complexity, astonishment and worry, as he contemplates the human complicity in mass extinction.

• 45 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2021

Don McKay is the author of 14books of poetry, includingStrike/Slip, which won the Griffin Poetry Prize,Camber, Selected PoemsandAngular Unconformity. McKay has taught poetry in universities across Canada. He currently lives in St. John's.

awsis kinky and dishevelledby Louise BerniceHalfe

Louise Bernice Halfe's latest poetry collection,awsis kinky and dishevelled,exploresstories of resistance, rebellion and laughter by way of awsis, a gender-fluid trickster character who takes readers on a humorousjourney ofmystery and spirituality.

• The advice Louise Bernice Halfe would give to her younger self

Halfeis a poetfrom Saskatchewan, who served as the province's first Indigenous poet laureate. Her other poetry collections includeBear Bones & Feathers,Blue Marrow,The Crooked GoodandBurning in this Midnight Dream.In 2021, Halfe, whose Cree name is Sky Dancer,became Canada's ninth parliamentary poet laureate.

11:53Billeh Nickerson on Duct-Taped Roses

Billeh Nickerson talks to Shelagh Rogers about his poetry collection, Duct-Taped Roses.

The Language We Were Never Taught To Speakby Grace Lau

The poems inThe Language We Were Never Taught To Speakare a form of therapy that, according to Lau, few Chinese Canadians ever get to experience. It delves into the shapes that love and apologies take:the eternal debt one takes on knowing they'll never be able to repay their parents, the coming out journey in a traditional household and the never ending task of trying to better understand the perspectives of your elders.

• How recounting the past in poetry form helps Grace Lau find peace with her family and identity

Grace Lau was raised in Vancouver and currently lives in Toronto.The Language We Were Never Taught to Speakis her first poetry collection.

Pandemic Poems by Olive Senior

Pandemic Poemswas inspired in 2020,when the pandemic first hit the news cycle and changed society forever.Jamaican Canadian author and poet Olive Senior paidclose attention to the words and phrases that became part of the everyday lexicon. Pandemic Poemsis a collection of poems thatcapturethe profound transformation brought about by COVID-19, words that she initiallyshared on social media.

• Olive Senior explores hope in a world beset by COVID-19 in poetry collection Pandemic Poems

Senioris the author of 18 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children's literature. She has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize andtheOCM Bocas Prizefor Caribbean Literature. Her collectionOver the Roofs of the Worldwasshortlistedfor the 2005Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. In 2019,Senior delivered the prestigiousMargaret Laurence Lecture.

Torontos poet laureate marks one-year anniversary of COVID-19 pandemic

4 years ago

Duration 2:24

Thursday marks the one-year anniversary since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic. As a tribute to the past year, A.F. Moritz, Torontos poet laureate, presented a poem during Toronto City Council on Wednesday. Exactly Here the Marvel Spoke Memorial of a Plague Year: March 2020 March 2021 not only remembers those we lost, but also highlights the need for hope as we move forward. Take a look. (Photos courtesy of Evan Mitsui & Michael Wilson/CBC, Frank Gunn & Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Sulphurtongueby Rebecca Salazar

Sulphurtongueis the debut poetry collection by Rebecca Salazar. The wide array of poems explores how we create our identities and how they collide with and complicate each other. They take on the relationships to family, desire, religion, the land, politics, trauma and the natural world and how these things shape who we are.

Sulphurtonguewasonthe shortlist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.

• Writers' Trust of Canada launches program to support books by BIPOC writers launched during pandemic

Salazaris a writer, editor and community organizer from New Brunswick. They edit the publications The FiddleheadandPlenitude.

The Junta of Happenstanceby Tolu Oloruntoba

The Junta of Happenstanceis the first poetry collection from Nigerian Canadian writerTolu Oloruntoba.The Junta of Happenstanceis an exploration of disease, both medical and emotional. It explores family dynamics, social injustice, the immigrant experience, economic anxiety andthe nature of suffering.

The Junta of Happenstancewon the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.

• The finalists for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry

Oloruntobais a writer from Nigeria who now lives in Surrey, B.C. He practiced medicine for six years, and has harboured a love for writing poetry since he was 16. His first chapbook,Manubrium,was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award. He's also the founder of the literary magazineKlorofyl.

The Untranslatable Iby Roxanna Bennett

Roxanna Bennett is a queer poet living with a disability, and explores both these identities in their work.The Untranslatable Icontinues this tradition as Bennett reflects on how their lived experiences have shaped them.

The Untranslatable Iwasonthe shortlist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.

Bennett is a poet from Whitby, Ont. Theirother poetry collections includeUnmeaningableandThe Uncertainty Principle.Unmeaningablewon the 2020 Raymond Souster Award from the League of Canadian Poets and the2020 Trillium Book Award for poetry.

with/holdingby Chantal Gibson

with/holdingis a collection that critically examines how stories of Blackness and Black pain are consumed in ways that arerelentless and dehumanizinginmedia and popular culture. Gibson draws on imagery from past and present to create a world where Black voices move freely and disrupt the algorithm that replays and reinforces white supremacy.

• Chantal Gibson wants to decolonize minds through poetry

Chantal Gibson is awriter, artist and educator based in Vancouver. Her visual art has been exhibited at the ROM and galleries across Canada. Her debut poetry collection,How She Read,was afinalist for the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. Gibson was also on the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize longlistfor her poemThree Body Problem.

Fetishes of the Floating Worldby Don Domanski

Fetishes of the Floating Worldis a posthumous poetry collection that shares Don Domanski'slifelong interest in mystical ecology. It's a spirituality that grapples with the peculiarities of an ever-shifting world and isunderlined by an anxiety arounddeep time.

• Friends mourn death of N.S. poet Don Domanski

Domanski was born and raised in Sydney, N.S., and lived most of his life in Halifax. He is the author of nine poetry collections. Domanski mentored other poets through the Banff Centre for the Arts Wired Writing Studio and the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Mentorship program.He died in 2020.

A History of the Theories of Rainby Stephen Collis

A History of the Theories of Rainis a poetry collection that explores our current state of anxiety and sense of impending doom, using a mixture of lyrics, speculation and philosophy.

Collis is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, includingThe Commons,On the Material,Once inBlockadiaandAlmost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten. In 2019,he was awarded the Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize, which honours a poet for theirbody of work. He lives near Vancouverand teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University.

A Thousand Times You Lose Your TreasurebyHoa Nguyen

Hoa Nguyen takes on the extraordinary task of telling her mother's life story inA Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure,a verse biography. The poet's mother,DipAnhNguyn, was a stunt motorcyclist who soared with an all-women's Vietnamese circus troupe. Throughout her mother's narrative, Nguyen weaves in poetic dispatches from pre and post-"Fall of Saigon" in poems likeMade by DowandNapalm Notes.

A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasurewasa finalist for the 2021 U.S. National Book Award.

• Hoa Nguyen would never use a pen name

Hoa Nguyen is the author of several books of poetry, includingAs Long As Trees LastandViolet Energy Ingots, which was a finalist for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize.Born in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, Nguyen was raised and educated in the United States. She has lived in Canada since 2011.

Pebble Swingby Isabella Wang

Pebble Swingis a meditation on language loss and family history. After moving toVancouver at the age of seven, Isabella Wang starts toloseher understanding of her mother tongue, Mandarin, but still sees its syllablesbouncing back at her in the waves of the water. She reflectsback on her family's history in China and the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, exploring the enduring power of what remainsunspoken.

• Vancouver poet makes teeny, tiny homage to local bookstore

Wang is an editor at Room magazine and lives in Port Moody, B.C. She was the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly's Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over 30 literary journals.

ORACULEby Nicole Raziya Fong

ORACULEis a book that exists where poetry and theatre intersect. Drawing influence fromFriedrich Nietzsche'sThe Birth of Tragedy, the writings of Plato, the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini andHomer's Odyssey,ORACULEends up beingmusical and epic in nature, as its poemsexplore the crushing intangibles of human existence time, identity, loss and self.

Nicole Raziya Fong is a poet living in Montreal. She is also the author of the poetry collectionPerfact.

Danger Flowerby Jaclyn Desforges

Danger Flowerevokes the cautionary nature of fairy tales, calling upon uncanny images of lush gardens, nesting dolls and Tamagotchis,as the poemsnavigategender, sex and motherhood ina dangerous and evolving world. Jaclyn Desforges infuses her poetry with sensation, sometimespainful, sometimes pleasurable and sometimes both at once.

Desforges is a poet and picture book author. She has won the 2018 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award and the 2020 Hamilton Emerging Artist Award for Writing. Her work has been featured in Room Magazine, The Fiddlehead and The Puritan. She lives in Hamilton, Ont.

Umbilical Cordby Hasan Namir

Umbilical Cordis a collection of joyous free-verse poems that chronicle Hasan Namir's journey to fatherhood. The book isbrimmingwith hope and love, as Namir writes love letters to his new son,recounts how he and his husband fell in love and documents the complicated process of IVF and surrogacy.

• How this author learned his gay and Muslim identities could coexist and found hope in the process

Namir is an Iraqi Canadian author who currently lives in Vancouver. His other books includeGod in Pink, which won the Lambda Literary Award for best gay fiction, andWar/Torn, which was a 2020 Stonewall Book Awards winner.

Broken Dawn Blessingsby Adam Sol

Adam Sol's newest collection,Broken Dawn Blessings, is made up of poems that are loosely linked to the traditional Jewish morning prayers, the Birkhot haShachar(dawn blessings). The book strives tofind moments of empathy and awe in the midst of personal and public pain, shame and worry.

• Poetry should be enjoyed and Adam Sol wrote a book to show you how

Sol is a Canadian American poet. He is the author of four books of poetry, includingHow a Poem MovesandCrowd of Sounds, which won the 2004 Trillium Award for Poetry. He lives in Toronto and teaches at the University of Toronto.

Duct-Taped Rosesby Billeh Nickerson

While on a flight to Cairo,Nickerson listenedto The Bee Gees'70s pop hitHow Deep is Your Love20 times in a row. It inspired him to write about the depth of his own love, a poem that became part of his poetry collectionDuct-Taped Roses. The book's title, which refers to how Nickerson's father would use duct-tape to keep his airplanes together, is a nod to the gentle humour and heartbreak of the poetry as it examines the resiliency of love and family.

• How a classic 1970s pop ballad by the Bee Gees inspired Billeh Nickerson's latest poetry collection

Nickersonis a writer from Halifax who nowlives in Vancouver. His other poetry collections includeThe Asthmatic Glassblower,McPoems,Impact: The Titanic PoemsandArtificial Cherry.He teaches creative writing atKwantlen Polytechnic University.

barangayby Adrian De Leon

Adrian De Leon writesbarangayas he mourns the loss of grandmother, a woman who "lived, loved and grieved in three languages." He sails his barangayacross oceans, sharing stories of migration, colonialism and homefinding from the Filipino diaspora.

De Leon is a writer and educator from Manila by way of Scarborough, Ont.He is the author ofRougeand co-editor ofFeel Ways: A Scarborough Anthology.His poetry and non-fiction have appeared in The Puritan, Joyland Magazine and Catapult. De Leon currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the University of Southern California.

The Gardenby A. F. Moritz

The Gardenisa long poem,The Garden in the Midst, and an essay,The Garden, that explores police brutality against Black lives in North America. It starts with the 1992 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, and the protests that follow. Itmoves forward to 2020, with the murder of George Floyd, and back to 1968, with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.The Gardenwas originally written in 1992, and Moritz returned to the work and reworked it in 2020.

• A. F. Moritz on the under-appreciation of sparrows, poetry's 'uselessness' and more

Moritz is the author of 20 poetry collections. He has won the Griffin Poetry Prize, the BessHokin Prize and an awardin literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.He is currently the sixth poet laureate ofToronto.