Canadian Book Review ~ In the Capital City of Autumn by Tim Bowling

Happy Publication to Tim Bowling and his new poetry collection, In the Capital City of Autumn, published with Wolsak & Wynn!

Tim Bowling is in top form in his latest collection of poetry, In the Capital City of Autumn. Threading through autumnal themes such as the loss of his mother and the demolition of his childhood home, his children growing and the inevitable passage of time, Bowling writes with rich lyricism and imagery. Sweet William and loosely woven woollen mitts for his mother, the moon as “an egg in the pocket of a running thief” for time, salmon for eternity. In the Capital City of Autumn, the characters of The Great Gatsby come to life, and three a.m. brings wisdom. These are masterful poems, lightened with a touch of whimsy, poems to sink into on a quiet evening.

@wolsakandwynn

@river_street_writes

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Canadian Books ~ The Art of Floating by Melanie Martilla

Happy Publication to Melanie Marttila’s debut poetry collection, The Art of Floating, published by Latitude 46.

The Art of Floating is Melanie Marttila’s debut poetry collection, and a result of and testament to years of honing her craft. The collection of five sections of free verse poems is wide ranging and eclectic, bringing to life her deep connection with the earth and sky of Ontario. The aptly named collection describes her learned ability to ride the unpredictable waves of mental illness  and prevent herself from drowning within it, while seeking solace in the natural world around her. These lyric poems are stunning and transportative, absorbing the reader with captivating imagery, complex diction, and highly relatable themes most pivotal in life, such as loss, grief, and hope. 

The Art of Floating is an elegant and beautifully crafted debut collection of poetry by Sudbury’s Melanie Marttila. Her poems are mirrors to the tiny, often quiet, and supposedly insignificant moments in a life. In her poetic work, Marttila reminds her readers to take note of the rhythms of the natural world, inviting them to consider elements of myth, astronomy, ritual, and personal anecdote as a way of finding the poems that live in the world in both a specific and universal way. Paying attention to the supposedly small things in life, Marttila suggests, is the way in which you can enter the world—and move through it mindfully—in a truly poetic fashion.”

— Kim Fahner, author of Emptying the Ocean 

@melaniemartilla

@lat46publishing

@river_street_writes

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Canadian Books ~ Blood Belies by Ellen Chang-Richardson

Happy Publication Day to Ellen Chang-Richardson and their extraordinary debut poetry collection, Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024).

Chang-Richardson writes of race, of injury and of belonging in stunning poems that fade in and out of the page. History swirls through this collection like a summer storm, as she brings her father’s, and her own, stories to light, writing against the background of the institutional racism of Canada, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the head tax and more. From Taiwan in the early 1990s to Oakville in the late 1990s, Toronto in the 2010s, Cambodia in the mid-1970s and Ottawa in the 2020s, Blood Belies takes the reader through time, asking them what it means to look the way we do? To carry scars? To persevere? To hope?

Ellen Chang-Richardson (they/them) is an award-winning poet of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent whose multi-genre writing has appeared in Augur, The Ex-Puritan, The Fiddlehead, Grain, third coast magazine, Vallum Contemporary, Watch Your Head and more.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, they were raised in Oakville, Ontario and São Paulo, Brazil, and spent their most formative years growing up in Shanghai, China. A third culture kid at heart, Ellen's writing is informed by their love of contemporary art, their concern with the climate crisis, and their experience moving through the world as they are.

The co-founder of Riverbed Reading Series, an editor for Room and ​long con magazine, and a member of the poetry collective VII, Ellen is currently based in Ottawa, Canada, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Nation. You can usually find them baking sourdough bread from their starter, Bubbles, or biking the riverside trails on their single-speed.

@river_street_writes

@ehjchang

@wolsakandwynn

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Canadian Books ~ Skater Girl by Robin Pacific

Happy Publication Day to Robin Pacific and her scrappy and sensational memoir in fragments, Skater Girl! (Guernica Editions)

Skater Girl is a collection of intensely personal essays, an archaeology of the self. Robin Pacific sifts through the midden of consciousness to find shells, potsherds, a broken piece of mirror. Themes of art, spirituality and social justice run like a current through otherwise disconnected pieces and fragments, many as short as one paragraph. Further, ideas about aging, loss and mortality colour many of them. The book is about the formation of Robin Pacific's many selves, about creativity, spiritual seeking, and the dream of a more equal society.

Robin Pacific‘s work has spanned thirty years and a wide variety of media. In addition to writing personal and critical essays, she has produced artworks in a variety of media, encompassing painting, drawing, video, installations, performance, and numerous community based collaborations. Robin holds a PhD in  English Literature from York University,  a Masters in Theological Studies from Regis College, and a Masters in Fine Art, Creative Nonfiction, from Kings College. Skater Girl is her first full-length book

@river_street_writes

@robinpacific

@guernicaeditions

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