ISBN 13: 978-1-894469-62-3

$19.95 CDN/US
150 pp

The often outrageous and always wise follow-up to 2008’s Governor General’s Award–nominated Be Calm, Honey shows David W. McFadden at his most inquisitive and provocative. Here you’ll find ninety-nine poems full of surprises by a Canadian long-distance poet in his sixth decade of writing, a writer who never rests on his laurels or allows himself to become complacent. This is a book full of mystics and Golden Age movie stars, friends of McFadden and long-dead philosophers, and their tales are all told in the poet’s deceptively plainspoken voice.

“[David W. McFadden] is the most readable poet on the planet…. He reminds you to be yourself, to be yourself in the world, and give it a chance to amaze you. While reading his beautiful clear language, you sense that he is a trickster, but you cannot help believing every stanza he writes. If there is any such thing as an essential poet, here he is.” — Judges’ citation, 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist

“McFadden often addresses serious subjects like mortality, but with a sly, absurdist touch. He’s the archenemy of solemnity… He slips in satirical pokes at human failings and sneaks up on existential questions in a disarmingly offbeat way.” — Barbara Carey, Toronto Star

“Being McFadden, he often confronts losses, real or anticipated, with a wicked if understated sense of humour…. The large range of moods in Be Calm, Honey reflect both the times and the generous spirit of the writer.” — Douglas Barbour, Canadian Literature

“Be Calm, Honey displays masterful wit in a sequence of playful sonnets that engage the slipperiness of moment, thought and experience. There is delightful wisdom and humanity in the quirky disguises and accessibility of his plain speech.” — 2009 Governor General’s Award jury

ISBN 13: 978-1-894469-74-6

$16.95 CDN/US
62 pp

This lively first collection, often both creepy and hilarious, serves up an image-laden universe — the sideshow we call home — where contortionists, womanizing ventriloquist dummies, and pickled sharks compete with the everyday for the mark’s hard-earned buck. Jaime Forsythe’s poetry is loaded with wit, mystery, surprise, and breathtaking juxtapositions — it’s a contemporary inventory of pop culture and human experience that proves the wacky and the poignant can share a seat in the same roller-coaster of a stanza.

“Grounded in the domestic world, Jaime Forsythe’s spare, yet storied poems immerse us in particulars: wax, egg cartons, swizzle sticks, sweatpants, thongs, ‘an earring/in the grass.’ Forsythe tells the familiar slant, full of startling revelations — ‘In each surprise, something/you already know.’ These are smart, personable, fresh, carefully crafted poems, and Jaime Forsythe is a poet I very much look forward to hearing more from.” — Jeanette Lynes, author of It’s Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems

“Jaime Forsythe’s debut collection mixes contradictions: caution with wit, public despair with flippant dismissal, story with rumination. Hers is a kind of high-octane sadness. It’s exactly what Canadian poetry needs.” — Jacob McArthur Mooney, author of The New Layman’s Almanac and Folk

ISBN 13: 978-1-894469-70-8

$16.95 CDN/US
80 pp

In her follow-up to 2008’s Flutter, former big-city-dweller Alice Burdick explores nature and the small town, taking a cue from children learning their voices: “All I see are trucks, / trucks and ducks.” With a blend of playful narrative and an Ashberyesque collage approach, Burdick paints a portrait of our world as one of continuous wonder, and full of relationships—between people, and between people and things—that never die but continually transform, even in death.

On Alice Burdick’s Previous Books

“Her lines are deceptively elementary, but it’s not simplicity they produce, but complex comprehension.”
—George Elliott Clarke, The Chronicle Herald

“Burdick [focuses] closely on the sound and spark of her language, often making startling leaps in logic, tone, and theme from one stanza to the next. This imbues the work with a pleasing surrealistic energy.”
—David Barrick, Matrix

“An odd oracular voice of someone standing apart and commenting on what she observes floods these utterances. Burdick’s observations merit our attention.” —Lily Iona MacKenzie, Prairie Fire

“An intelligent bold voice without pomp and ceremony.… One gets the impression Burdick could be hiding behind us watching our every
misstep, or pointing out spit on the pavement before we slip.”
—Candice Daquin, Northern Poetry Review

“These poems bristle with wonderful shocks to perception—intellectual, visceral, and hallucinatory.” —Lance La Rocque, The Drunken Boat

ISBN 13: 978-1-894469-66-1

$16.95 CDN/US
82 pp

In his first full-length poetry collection since 2004, Nelson Ball, Canada’s most renowned minimalist, offers up compressed meditations — ranging from the whimsical to the mournful — on clouds, birds, insects, trees live and dead, water-stained walls, crumbling windmills, and hyphenation. Ball’s poems are meticulously polished gems that move through the seasons, finding beauty and depth in the most banal and simple things.

On Nelson Ball’s Previous Books

“From his seat at the pond’s edge, the poet learns to hear the language of its elements, and then teaches the reader to do the same.” — Nita Pronovost, Matrix

“In At the Edge of the Frog Pond and outwards, words ring again, and lingering, re-affirm the import of the word in the world, and none of it is superfluous.” — Kemeny Babineau, Rampike

“The poems in Ball’s latest collection express, as so many of his earlier works do, keen observation of the natural world tightly wrought and sparsely told.” — Travis V. Mason, Canadian Literature

“Nelson Ball’s Almost Spring releases language that alters one’s perception of almost everything.” — Elizabeth Woods, 2000 Britannica Book of the Year

“At his best, Ball proves that short can be eloquent, and small beautiful.” — W. J. Keith, Canadian Book Review Annual

“Although he has worn glasses all the 40+ years that I have known him, there is nothing wrong with his vision.” — M. R. Appell, Tract