Zachariah Wells

Ex-Vancouverite Lisa Roberston's eighth book is classified as poetry, but is no straightforward volume of lyrics. It also contains 'essays, confessions, reports, translations, drafts, treatises, laments and utopias' written between 1995 and 2007. Robertson's work occupies a liminal zone between poetry and philosophy. For her the poem is a place in which one thinks aloud: 'I said I didn't know what thinking is. / ... / I didn't understand. / I let myself go blank. // I began by taking everything that was doubtful and throwing it out, like sand.'

Toronto-based Shannon Bramer’s third book is a challenge to the easy assumptions we often make about what topics are appropriate subject matter for poetry. Many of Bramer’s poems have a mixture of political and personal themes, which can often steer poems away from art and into rant, cant, and confession. But Bramer proves that any subject, if handled skillfully, can be made into compelling poetry. She does this by balancing personal conviction and strong feeling with artistic precision and distance.