37 poetry collections to watch for in spring 2024
April is Poetry Month so if you love poetry, watch for these books coming out in the first half of 2024.
Nucleus by Svetlana Ischenko
Nucleus is a poetry collection that explores the tensions between Svetlana Ischenko's two poetic cultures as a Ukrainian Canadian immigrant and multilingual poet. With both structured sonnets and lyrical pieces, the book examines the tensions of translating oneself as a new immigrant.
Nucleus is out now.
Born in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, Ischenko is a Vancouver-based poet, translator, former actress and teacher. She writes poetry, essays and plays in both English and Ukrainian. Her poems have been featured in The Antigonish Review and Event.
Once the Smudge is Lit by Kelsey Borgford and Cole Forrest, illustrated by Tessa Pizzale
Once the Smudge is Lit offers readers insight into the spiritual elements of Ojibway culture and explores the contemporary Indigenous experience. The verse and evocative illustrations touch on various themes ranging from love to community.
Once the Smudge is Lit is out now.
Kelsey Borgford is a Nbisiing Nishnaabekwe from the Marten clan and an emerging author. She has a forthcoming children's book called What's in a Bead.
Cole Forrest is an Ojibway filmmaker and programmer from Nipissing First Nation. They are the writer and director of various short films that have been screened at festivals including imagineNATIVE, TQFF and the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Tessa Pizzale is a Moose Cree artist and student at Nipissing University. She is based in North Bay, Ont.
Talking to Strangers by Rhea Tregebov
Talking to Strangers is a poetry collection that explores new encounters with people and objects. As is characteristic of celebrated poet Rhea Tregebov, the book dabbles in the art of recollection and elegy with skill and tenderness.
Talking to Strangers is out now.
Tregebov is a Vancouver-based poet, novelist and children's writer. She's written seven books of poetry and two novels, including Rue des Rosiers, and has won the J. I. Segal Award, the Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Pat Lowther Award and the Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award.
Hazard, Home by Christine Lowther
Hazard, Home is a collection of nature poetry with a decolonial lens. The work examines the world with wonder at the animals and plants — and grief due to urbanization, climate change and loss of biodiversity.
Hazard, Home is out now.
Christine Lowther resides in ƛaʔuukwiiʔatḥ (Tla-o-qui-aht) territory on the west coast. She is the editor of Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees and its youth companion volume. She is also the author of four poetry collections. She served as Tofino's Poet Laureate during the COVID years and was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran
The poems in Precedented Parroting explore themes of loss, the natural world, Asian stereotypes and our feathered friends. It's also a book about survival through generations and how both loss and feathers can enable and necessitate flight.
Precedented Parroting is out now.
Born in New York City, Barbara Tran is a poet whose work has appeared in Women's Review of Books, Ploughshares and The New Yorker. Honours include a MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, Pushcart Prize and Lannan Foundation Writing Residency. She was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize. She currently lives in Toronto.
Northerny by Dawn Macdonald
Northerny tells of what it's like to grow up in the North — and the many ways in which the North can be messy, beautiful and painful. This poetry collection breaks free of the perception of the North as a way to enlightenment or escape and gives a Northerner's perspective of growing up and making a living in the region.
Northerny is out now.
Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse and studied mathematics and physics at university. Her poetry has been published in The Antigonish Review, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, FOLIO, Grain, Literary Review of Canada and The Malahat Review, among others. Northerny is her first book.
We Follow the River by Onjana Yawnghwe
We Follow the River follows one family who escapes from military violence in Myanmar to Thailand and finally Canada. The collection is about learning about family history and finding a home in a foreign land.
We Follow the River is out now.
Onjana Yawnghwe is a Shan-Canadian writer who lives on the lands of the Kwikwetlem First Nation in British Columbia. Her poetry books include Fragments, Desire and The Small Way, which were both nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.
Teeth by Dallas Hunt
Teeth is a poetry collection that explores the consequences of colonization and why it continues to repeat itself in today's society. The book also celebrates the successes of Indigenous peoples and looks into the realities they face.
Teeth is out now.
Dallas Hunt is Cree and a member of Wapsewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty Eight territory in northern Alberta. His children's book, Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock, illustrated by Amanda Strong, was nominated for several awards and was one of the 2024 CBC Kids Reads contenders. Hunt lives in Vancouver.
Gay Girl Prayers by Emily Austin
Gay Girl Prayers is a poetry collection that reclaims Catholic prayers and passages from the Bible to empower young women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. At once sassy and funny, this book celebrates cultural and societal differences.
Gay Girl Prayers is out now.
Emily Austin is an Ottawa-based writer. Her debut novel, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, was longlisted for The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award and the Ottawa Book Award.
A Blueprint for Survival by Kim Trainor
A Blueprint for Survival is a poetry collection that starts in wildfire season and then explores the forms of resistance and survival in the context of climate change. It examines each of these forms as a blueprint for being in and seeing the world.
A Blueprint for Survival is out now.
Kim Trainor is the author of the poetry collections A thin fire runs through me, Karyotype and Ledi. Her poems have won the Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Prize, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize and the Great Blue Heron Prize. Her poem Desolation made the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist. She lives in Vancouver.
Love Life Loss and a little bit of hope by Chief R. Stacey Laforme
In this poetry collection, Chief R. Stacey Laforme draws from his own experiences to share the moments and emotions that have shaped him. Intertwining pain and humour, it invites non-Indigenous people to explore Indigenous perspectives.
Love Life Loss and a little bit of hope is out now.
Laforme is the retired Chief of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation after serving his community for over 20 years. He is also a poet and storyteller, known for his collection Living in the Tall Grass: Poems of Reconciliation.
Medium by Johanna Skibsrud
Medium is a poetry collection that gives voice to women vilified over the course of history including Helen of Troy, Shakuntala Devi and Marie Curie. The poems serve as a bridge through time and reimagine and reinterpret the myths as we know them.
Medium is out now.
Johanna Skibsrud is the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists. She also wrote the novel Quartet for the End of Time and the short story collections Tiger, Tiger and This Will Be Difficult to Explain and Other Stories. She currently divides her time between Nova Scotia and Arizona.
impact statement by Jody Chan
Using patient records, psychiatric assessments and court documents, impact statement tells the history of psychiatric institutions within the context of colonialism. The collection deals with themes of migration, intergenerational trauma, gentrification and racialized violence all while making space for a better future.
impact statement is out now.
Jody Chan is a Toronto-based writer, drummer, organizer and therapist. Their work includes haunt, all out futures and sick. They are the winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and the 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry.
you by Chantal Neveu, translated by Erín Moure
you is a book-length poem that explores the formation of self and personal autonomy. Through verse and the spaces in between, the beautiful voice of the work reclaims and affirms one's life.
you is out now.
Chantal Neveu is a Montreal-based author of seven books of poetry. Her book This Radiant Life, also translated by Erín Moure won the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation and the 2021 Nelson Ball Prize.
Moure is a poet and poetry translator. Her most recent book is Chus Pato's The Face of the Quartzes and her latest poetry book is Theophylline.
West of West Indian by Linzey Corridon
West of West Indian is a poetry collection that explores the Queer Caribbean experience, both the pain and pleasure, as an individual and a collective. It dives into themes of love and autonomy using language that is often used to unsettle queer life.
West of West Indian is out now.
Linzey Corridon is a writer and educator. He was born in the Caribbean and he now lives in Canada.
A Year of Last Things by Michael Ondaatje
A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje's long-awaited return to poetry. Drawing on his personal experiences, this collection goes back in time to all the borders that he's crossed with imagery at once witty, moving and wise.
A Year of Last Things is out now.
Michael Ondaatje is a Canadian literary icon. His novels and poetry have earned international acclaim, and he was the first Canadian ever to win the Man Booker Prize — in 1992, for the wartime story The English Patient. Born in Sri Lanka and educated in England, Ondaatje moved to Canada when he was 18 to attend university.
Ondaatje began his writing career in 1967 as a poet, winning two Governor General's Awards for poetry before turning to fiction. Over his career, he's won the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award and France's prestigious Prix Medicis among other prizes.
The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful
The Seventh Town of Ghosts explores these titular towns through songs that help readers grapple with the challenges of existence and independence. The book offers insight into the power of connection, tenderness and the human spirit.
The Seventh Town of Ghosts is out now.
Faith Arkorful has had her work published in Guts, Peach Mag, Prism International, Hobart, Without/pretend, The Puritan and Canthius, among others. She was a semi-finalist in the 2019 92Y Discovery Contest. Faith was born in Toronto, where she still resides. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize.
The Knot of My Tongue by Zehra Naqvi
The Knot of My Tongue uses a variety of poetic forms to capture a cast of characters as they attempt to express the inexpressible, from a new immigrant to Canada trying to speak a new language to the myth of Philomena searching for ways to communicate after her husband cuts off her tongue.
The Knot of My Tongue is out now.
Zehra Naqvi is a Vancouver-based writer who was born in Karachi. She won the 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. The Knot of My Tongue is her debut poetry collection.
shima by Shō Yamagushiku
shima is a poetry collection that questions both the past and future of a community exiled, anchored in the relationship of a father and son. It shows the fragility of memory with a voice at once yearning and precise.
shima is out now.
Shō Yamagushiku is a writer and researcher living in Victoria. shima is his debut poetry collection.
Oh Witness Dey! by Shani Mootoo
With no record of how they got there and where they're originally from, Shani Mootoo's great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad by the British. Oh Witness Dey! discusses the concept of "origin" through an exploration of history, displacements and legacy, starting with her own.
Oh Witness Dey! is out now.
Mootoo is a writer and visual artist who currently lives in Ontario. Her debut novel was 1997's Cereus Blooms at Night. Her novel Polar Vortex was shortlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her other books include the novels Cane | Fire, Moving Forward Sideways like a Crab and Valmiki's Daughter. In 2022, she won the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award for fiction writers in the middle of their career.
Fine by Matt Rader
Fine takes place in the Kelowna area from June 2021 to June 2022. The poetry collection deals with the events from that time period, including the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the November 2021 atmospheric river. Despite all these challenges, the poems present a voice of survival and an appreciation for the world's beauty.
When you can read it: April 2024
Rader is a writer from Kelowna, B.C. He is the author of six volumes of poetry, a book of nonfiction and the short story collection What I Want to Tell Goes Like This. He teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
The Oneironaut ∅1 by Sheri-D Wilson
The Oneironaut ∅1 is the first book-long epic poem in a trilogy that explores what the future would look like if we couldn't dream. In this speculative account, scientist Rain is drawn to a small group of people who protect the world of illusion and feels compelled to help them bring down the dystopian regime and allow people to dream once again.
When you can read it: April 2024
Sheri-D Wilson is a Calgary-based writer and artist of 13 books, four short films and three words and music albums. She was appointed to The Order of Canada in 2019 and was the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Calgary from 2018-2020.
The Last to the Party by Chuqiao Yang
The Last to the Party is a poetry collection that deals with family, culture and diaspora through place and perspective — from a Saskatchewan childhood to family visits in Taiyuan. In this moving account, the speaker searches for moments of self-discovery and finds a strong poetic vision.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Chuqiao Yang is an Ottawa-based poet whose work has been featured in The Unpublished City, Ricepaper, Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, Prism, Grain, CV2, Room, and on CBC Radio. Her chapbook, Reunions in the Year of Sheep, won the bpNichol Chapbook Award.
The Lantern and the Night Moths by Yilin Wang
The Lantern and the Night Moths is a translation of poems by five contemporary and modern Chinese poets, Qiu Jin, Fei Ming, Dai Wangshu, Zhang Qiaohui and Xiao Xi. The poems are translated next to their original text and the book includes essays about the art of poetry translation.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Yilin Wang is a writer, poet and Chinese-English translator. Her fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Clarkesworld, The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain, CV2, carte blanche and The Tyee. They won the Foster Poetry Prize, an Honorable Mention in the poetry category of Canada's National Magazine award and were longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize. She is based in Vancouver.
Terrarium by Matthew Walsh
Terrarium is a poetry collection that explores queer identity and depression using a conversational writing style. Raw, confessional and often messy, the voice has a quality of intimacy and shared secrets.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Matthew Walsh is a poet known for their debut book These are not the potatoes of my youth, which was a finalist for the Trillium and Gerald Lampert Awards. Walsh has previously contributed poetry to publications like The Malahat Review and Arc. They are now based in Toronto.
Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins
Sorry About the Fire is a debut poetry collection that sees the world through a triple lens of Irish, French and Odawa heritage. Using rhythmic language, it attempts to detect patterns and answer questions of time and being.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Colleen Coco Collins is an interdisciplinary artist of Irish, French and Odawa descent. Based in Nova Scotia, Sorry About the Fire is her first poetry collection.
Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi
Scientific Marvel is a poetry collection that looks into the history of and current life in Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness and colonialism while keeping personal lived experiences close to the page.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Chimwemwe Undi is a Winnipeg-based poet, editor and lawyer. She is the Winnipeg Poet Laureate for 2023 and 2024. Undi was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her work can be found in Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World, among others.
Midway by Kayla Czaga
Midway is a poetry collection that explores the writer's grief in the aftermath of her parents' deaths. The poems travel from the underworld to London's Tate Modern in a way that's both comforting and disconcerting.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Kayla Czaga is also the author of For Your Safety Please Hold On and Dunk Tank. Her debut won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, among others. Czaga was on the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Drunk River. She lives in Victoria and served as the online poetry mentor for Simon Fraser University's The Writer's Studio.
Crying Dress by Cassidy McFadzean
Crying Dress is a poetry collection rooted in the tradition of lyric poetry while adopting its own spin and linguistic play that challenges an idea of poetic coherence. It spans various locations and brings together scenes from intimate moments in domestic life to ones featuring the ghosts of Brooklyn.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Regina-raised Cassidy McFadzean is a past finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize and The Walrus Poetry Prize. Her poetry books are Drolleries and Hacker Packer, which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also wrote a crown of sonnets called Third State of Being. She currently lives in Toronto.
A Fate Worse Than Death by Nisha Patel
A Fate Worse Than Death is a poetry collection that uses the author's own medical records to investigate the worthiness of the disabled life. It explores how her multiple disabilities affect her daily life and shows how poetry allows her to offer complexity to her experiences — her pain, sickness, anger but also love.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Nisha Patel is the Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Edmonton and a Canadian Poetry Slam Champion. She is the author of Coconut. A disabled and queer artist, she won the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Medal and the Edmonton Artists' Trust Fund.
Wet by Leanne Dunic
Wet follows a Chinese American model working in Singapore who wants better for the world: fair labour rights, breathable air and connection. With a mastery of photography and language, Wet tells her story as she feels lost and observes migrant workers in dangerous conditions.
When you can read it: April 6, 2024
Leanne Dunic is an artist, musician, writer and PhD candidate. Her work includes poetry book To Love the Coming End and One and Half of You, which was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2021 by CBC Books. She won the 2021 LA Review Flash Fiction Award and currently lives in Vancouver.
Songbook by Steven Heighton, edited by Ginger Pharand
Songbook brings together the lyrics and music of the late award-winning author and musician Steven Heighton, who died suddenly of cancer during an intensely creative period of writing. The poems are accompanied by chords, allowing musicians to bring them to life.
When you can read it: April 23, 2024
Steven Heighton was a musician and author of 20 books of poetry, nonfiction and fiction, including Afterlands and Governor General's Literary Award winning The Waking Comes Late. He lived in Kingston, Ontario.
Ginger Pharand is a Kingston-based editor, educator and psychotherapist.
Limited Verse by David Martin
Limited Verse is a collection of classic poems with a new twist — they're translated into New English, made up of only 850 words.
When you can read it: April 30, 2024
David Martin is an author of poetry collections Kink Bands and Tar Swan, which was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize. Martin won the CBC Poetry Prize in 2014.
I Will Get Up Off Of by Simina Banu
I Will Get Up Off Of is a poetry collection about trying to leave a chair. Bound by anxiety and depression and looking for hope everywhere from fitness influencers to psychics, the poems eventually become more and more desperate and highlight the importance of art when it comes to survival.
When you can read it: May 21, 2024
Simina Banu is a Montreal-based author. Having published two chapbooks before, her first full-length collection of poetry was POP. Her poetry has appeared in filling Station, untethered, In/Words Magazine and the Feathertale Review, among others.
Barfly by Michael Lista
At once hilarious and raw, Barfly uses Byronic rhymes and Auden's meters to discuss twenty-first century topics.
When you can read it: June 4, 2024
Michael Lista is a Toronto-based poet and journalist, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, The Walrus and Toronto Life. He is the author of several books of poetry and a collection of essays. Lista was the winner of the 2020 National Magazine Award Gold Medals for both Investigative Reporting and Long Form Feature Writing. His story, The Sting, is being adapted into a television series for Apple TV+.
Lossless by Matthew Tierney
Lossless is a poetry collection that explores the connection between algorithms and sonnets, viewing the verses as lines of code. It does this all while accessing inherently human experiences of loss of relationships, faith, childhood and people.
When you can read it: June 5, 2024
Matthew Tierney is the author of four books of poetry, including Midday at the Super-Kamiokande which was nominated for a ReLit Award. He is the winner of the 2013 Trillium Book Award for Poetry and is also a recipient of the K. M. Hunter Award and the P.K. Page Founders' Award. He lives in Toronto.
Unwashed by Daniel Maluka
Unwashed is a poetry collection that reflects the author's experience as an immigrant to Canada and the themes of growing up, love and alienation. Image-rich and intense, the poems explore the city of Toronto in a loud and unapologetic manner.
When you can read it: June 15, 2024
Daniel Maluka is an artist and writer from South Africa based in Toronto. Unwashed is his debut poetry collection.
