Author Archives: Douglas Barbour

Guy Gavriel Kay’s tone poem of remembrance & loss in an alternate Renaissance.

Posted on May 22, 2019

Guy Gavriel Kay. A Brightness Long Ago. (Viking 2019). If, like me, you are a fan of Kay’s historical novels set in another world so like & unlike our own, & especially if you enjoyed the earlier Sarantine Mosaic & … Continue reading →

Posted in SF&F | 1 Comment

Kathleen Wall & Veronica Geminder’s ekphrastic collaboration

Posted on May 11, 2019

Kathleen Wall & Veronica Geminder. Visible Cities. (University of Calgary Press 2018). How to write ekphrasis? There’s no easy answer, but Kathleen Wall has approached the problem through collaboration, in the case of Visible Cities, with her daughter, Veronica Geminder, … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | 1 Comment

Kelly Shepherd constructs a magpie nest of a text about Edmonton

Posted on November 2, 2018

Kelly Shepherd. Insomnia Bird: Edmonton poems. (Thistledown Press 2018). With Insomnia Bird, Kelly Shepherd establishes himself as Edmonton’s chief bricoleur, honouring & copying the bird of the title, the magpie Edmontonians know so well, with its huge nests built out … Continue reading →

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Jenna Butler’s visionary voyage into the Arctic.

Posted on September 28, 2018

Jenna Butler. Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard. (University of Alberta Press 2018). Although published in UofAPress’s ‘Wayfarer’ travel narrative series, Magnetic North reads as a sequence of meditational prose poems exploring one extraordinarily sensitive creative mind’s encounter with the … Continue reading →

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Michael Ondaatje’s extrardinary play of warlight & shadow

Posted on May 4, 2018

Michael Ondaatje. Warlight. (McClelland & Stewart 2018). Set in early post-WW2 London to begin with, told from the point-of-view of a young man in his late 20s writing in 1959, Warlight takes up the tropes of mystery, spy thriller, & … Continue reading →

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Jennifer Still plays the silences

Posted on March 30, 2018

Jennifer Still. Comma. (BookThug 2017). As a sign of just how large & crowded the poetry scene, just in Canada, is, although she has published 2 previous books & been nominated for many awards, Comma is my first encounter with … Continue reading →

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Stephen Cain raises his ante & his anti- in False Friends

Posted on August 31, 2017

Stephen Cain. False Friends. (BookThug 2017). In his first full length collection in over a decade, & playing off the multilingual opposition contained in his title, Stephen Cain offers hifalutin (& low) games, lots of play on & with various … Continue reading →

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