review

The indefinite article in the title of A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People (Coach House) is either a logical impossibility or further evidence of the multiverse. Gabe Foreman is a 'new' poet who lives in Montreal, and his first book is a real gem.

On Christmas Eve, the National Post ran a very complimentary review of Sina Queyras's novel Autobiography of Childhood. The review praised its reflective and layered quality:

The National Post reviewed Rob Benvie's Maintenance over the Christmas weekend. Reviewer Alex Good compared the book to works by Douglas Coupland, Don DeLillo and Jonathan Franzen. See the review below, and in its original home www.nationalpost.com.

Sina Queyras's Autobiography of Childhood dissects a family forever coming to terms with loss. Blending snappy observations on the banal everyday with affecting reflections on relationships, Autobiography traces the lives of the five Combal siblings and their father, from the childhood death of a brother to the impending loss of cancer-stricken sister Therese. The novel moves through six different characters' perspectives, each of whom takes a turn attacking Adel, the family's harsh matriarch.

Both Jones's The Brave Never Write Poetry and Gabe Foreman's A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People were reviewed in the Fall 2011 issue of The Puritan by E. Martin Nolan. In it, he discusses the humour both poets use to different ends.

On The Brave Never Write Poetry:

Suzette Mayr's Monoceros takes place in an alternate reality, albeit a reality that very much resembles our own -- high school is a nightmare, students are bullied to death for being gay, men and women can lose their jobs for being gay, teen girls are vicious, adults are just as lost as the kids are, and the only difference between the two is that the former have given up searching for meaning.

Gary Barwin's recent book of poetry, The Porcupinity of the Stars, published by Coach House Books, is a very beautiful collection of poetic works. At times laconic, and in no way straightforward, reading Barwin's poems is, at times, like reading a different language altogether, or even an alternative English where semantics are more subjective than objective. Although Barwin's words are sparse and carefully chosen, his poems are peppered with occasional large words, like moribund, which upon inquiry, means "1.

Monoceros, by Suzette Mayr
Published: April 2011
Finally got around to it: July 2011

reviewed by Nancy Freund

"The Unicorns Are Coming."

As you can probably guess from the title, and the immensely enjoyable book trailer, Monoceros has something to do with Unicorns. And it does. But that something, the something that Suzette Mayr is doing with Unicorns, has nothing to do with meme culture, with juvenalia, or with twee. Instead, Mayr's talking about anatomically correct Unicorns. These are desirous and righteous beasts, and they rampage through the novel with all of the swagger and anxiety of adolescent libido.