This 19th day of National Poetry Month, Chaudiere Books shares "The Harrowing Hour", a poem I wrote in 2005, when my son was ~18 months old, in stark contrast to last week, when he expressed professional dismay at my attempt to trim my own bangs, (seen here in alarming close-up).
Ugh it's CARDAMOM please @us.theguardian.com … "Cardamon" (shudder) raises hives on the soul of every stovetop-elaichi-chai-simmering, side-hustle-manuscript-editing, Zohran-doting aunty. Okay, well, it raises hives on MINE.
I can't deal with the cuteness.
No answer for yr perceptive 5-yr-old; I just really liked this "slice of domestic poet-parent life on a Saturday morning". (My 22-yr-old just biked off to work. All these years, and I still failed to refrain from asking if he was going to put on a jacket).
A rectangular graph with horizontal coloured bars that lists all of the books by the late art critic, political thinker, and novelist John Berger, currently published by Verso Books, organized by colour according to what kinds of readers might be drawn to each one (Fans of Ways of Seeing (beige), activists (red), readers interested in Palestinian liberation and fighting imperialism (deep green), readers of fiction (navy blue), and "John Berger deep cuts" (spring green).
The Berger Chart is up at Verso! It's like playing bingo or "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" or collecting Pokemon cards, but so much better, because it's for grownup Berger nerds and devotees. @versobooks.bsky.social
I need to know this bird's stylist
A list of the 2026 finalists for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize featuring the covers of the five finalists and the BC and Yukon Book Prizes seal.
A photo of The Book of Z by Rahat Kurd between two mossy tree branches with the sun beaming down onto it.
We are delighted that The Book of Z by @rahat.bsky.social is a finalist for the 2026 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize! A huge congratulations to Rahat, and to all of this year's finalists!
bcyukonbookprizes.com/2026/04/14/a...
It's even more fun to go through this as a Canadian. When the cute little honorarium finally gets deposited, our banks also help themselves to a fee. Always love to see that negative integer in red on the bank statement.
Because we can never spend too much time reading literature and thinking about literature
Book cover for poetry chapbook Tulip is an Axe by Gary Barwin (Above/Ground): https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/new-from-aboveground-press-tulip-is-axe.html
Book cover for Crying Dress: Poems by Cassidy McFadzean (House of Anansi): The poems in Crying Dress, acclaimed poet Cassidy McFadzean’s third collection, explore the multiplicity of meaning that arises from fragmentation, rhythm, competing sounds, and ellipsis. Rooted in the tradition of lyric poetry, these strikingly original poems revel in musicality (rhyme, beat, and alliteration) while deploying puns, idiom, and other forms of linguistic play to create a dissonance that challenges the expected coherence of a poem. From the ghosts and gardens of Brooklyn and Sicily to the clanging of garbage chutes in Uno Prii’s modernist high rises in Toronto, to quiet moments of intimacy in domestic spaces, and the early days of sobriety and grief, Crying Dress explores the intersections between noise and coherence, the conversational and the associative, the architectural and the ecological, while reaffirming the poet’s sonic, vertiginous lyricism and gift for overlooked detail. https://houseofanansi.com/products/crying-dress
Book cover for Skin by Catherine Bush (Goose Lane): Now, for the first time, a blistering book of short fiction from one of Canada’s most loved novelists. In Skin, Catherine Bush plunges into the vortex of all that shapes us. Summoning relationships between the human and more-than-human, she explores a world where touch and intimacy are both desirable and fraught. https://gooselane.com/products/skin
Book cover for Nightjar by Natalie Rice (Gaspereau Press): The poems in Nightjar form a triptych vision of the way humans both experience and alter the natural world as we pass through it. Straddling between subalpine vistas and the brooks and bowers of the Acadian forest, Rice engages binaries of landscape and human history, loss and gain, the seen and unseen, and direction and distance, her movement between the sublime and the intimate stirring unexpected forces that pull us toward “the empty space where the mountain has fallen.” https://gaspereaupress.com/books/nightjar/
8/9 #DSPBposts #SmallPress #books from @catebush.bsky.social @gooselane.bsky.social @garybarwin.bsky.social @robmclennan.bsky.social @cassidymcfadzean.bsky.social @houseofanansi.bsky.social @nataliericepoetry.bsky.social @gaspereaupress.bsky.social 💙📚 #BookSky #bookish #readingchallenge #booktok
Book cover for I’ll Give You a Reason by Annell López (Feminist Press): A shimmering debut story collection intimately exploring race, identity, and the pursuit of the American Dream. https://www.feministpress.org/books-a-m/ill-give-you-a-reason
Book cover for Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese (House of Ananasi): Genre-blending stories of transformation and belonging that centre women of colour and explore queerness, family, and community. Winner, 2023 Governor General's Literary Award. https://houseofanansi.com/products/chrysalis
Book cover for The Lantern and the Night Moths edited and translated by Yilin Wang (Invisible Books): Winner of the John Glassco Translation Prize from the Literary Translators Association of Canada. Chinese diaspora poet-translator Yilin Wang has selected and translated poems by five of China’s most innovative modern and contemporary poets: Qiu Jin, Fei Ming, Dai Wangshu, Zhang Qiaohui, and Xiao Xi. Expanding on and subverting the long lineage of Classical Chinese poetry that precedes them, their work can be read collectively as a series of ars poeticas for modern Sinophone poetry. Wang’s translations are featured alongside the original Chinese texts, and accompanied by Wang’s personal essays reflecting on the art, craft, and labour of poetry translation. https://invisiblepublishing.com/product/the-lantern-and-the-night-moths/
Book cover for The Art of Forgiveness by Chris Benjamin (Galleon Books): The one with his indecipherable gibberish and long-in-the-back black hockey hair, who looked like he belonged in detention or the trailer park or both, who claimed soccer was the most popular sport, who during roll call called their teacher sir. And this American, wearing his stained Ralph Lauren sweater and yellow rubber boots, smelling like Drew’s ma’s Avon trunk, whacko enough to start a fight over Paul McCartney, smart enough to use big words and a lot of dirty ones too, yet too stupid to defer to Drew’s natural authority. The truth of these new kids was, they were a savage northbound monsoon that hit Drew at least as hard as he hit them. https://galleonbooks.ca/our-list/
7/9 #DSPBposts #SmallPress #books from @anuja-v.bsky.social @houseofanansi.bsky.social @benjaminwrites.bsky.social @galleonbooks.bsky.social @annelllopez.bsky.social @feministpress.bsky.social @yilinwriter.bsky.social @invisibooks.bsky.social 💙📚 #BookSky #BooksWorthReading #bookish
Coming back to this platform after some time away.
Book cover for Bad Land by Corinna Chong (Arsenal Pulp Press): Longlisted for the Giller Prize. A slow-burning story exploring the generational effects of repression and transgression, set against the raw, eerie landscape of the badlands. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/B/Bad-Land
Book cover for Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes (NYRB): A 2025 International Booker Prize Shortlist Nominee. Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. A scathing novel about contemporary existence, a tale of two people gradually waking up to find themselves in various traps, wondering how it all came to be. https://www.nyrb.com/products/perfection
Book cover for Arabic, between Love and War edited by Yasmine Haj and Norah Alkharashi (Trace Press): Poets & translators include George Abraham, Eman Abukhadra, Omar Aljaffal, Norah Alkharashi, Lamia Abbas Amara, Nour Balousha, Samar Diab, Najlaa Osman Eltom, Miled Faiza (& Karen McNeil), Zeena Faulk, Ibrahim Fawzy, Daad Haddad, Yasmine Haj, Mayada Ibrahim, Rana Issa, Ali Mahmoud Khudayyir, Hiba Moustafa, Suneela Mubayi, Mariam Naji, Ibrahim Nasrallah, Nashwa Nasreldin, Kamal Nasser, Nofel, Qasim Saudi, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Fadwa Tuqan. https://tracepress.org/collections/books/products/arabic-between-love-and-war-1
Book cover for River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation edited by Nuzhat Abbas (Trace Press): What are the histories, constraints, and possibilities of language in relation to bodies, origins, land, colonialism, gender, war, displacement, desire, and migration? Contributors include Khairani Barokka, Yasmine Haj, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Nedra Rodrigo, Suneela Mubayi, Iryn Tushabe, Gopika Jadeja, Rahat Kurd, Geetha Sukumaran, Norah Alkharashi, and Lisa Ndejuru. https://tracepress.org/collections/books/products/river-in-an-ocean-essays-on-translation
6/9 #DSPBposts #books from @tracepress.bsky.social @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social @vincenzo.bsky.social @intifadabatata.bsky.social @mayadamayadamay.bsky.social @lenakt.bsky.social @arsenalpulp.bsky.social @tracepress.bsky.social @mailbykite.bsky.social @wordsweaver.bsky.social @rahat.bsky.social 💙📚
Book cover for Bad Land by Corinna Chong (Arsenal Pulp Press): Longlisted for the Giller Prize. A slow-burning story exploring the generational effects of repression and transgression, set against the raw, eerie landscape of the badlands. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/B/Bad-Land
Book cover for River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation edited by Nuzhat Abbas (Trace Press): What are the histories, constraints, and possibilities of language in relation to bodies, origins, land, colonialism, gender, war, displacement, desire, and migration? Contributors include Khairani Barokka, Yasmine Haj, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Nedra Rodrigo, Suneela Mubayi, Iryn Tushabe, Gopika Jadeja, Rahat Kurd, Geetha Sukumaran, Norah Alkharashi, and Lisa Ndejuru. https://tracepress.org/collections/books/products/river-in-an-ocean-essays-on-translation
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books Bad Land by Corinna Chong (@arsenalpulp.bsky.social) & River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation, ed. Nuzhat Abbas (@tracepress.bsky.social & contribs @mailbykite.bsky.social @wordsweaver.bsky.social @rahat.bsky.social). See alt-text. #DSPBposts 💙📚 #BookSky
the fascist nakba against Palestinians has lasted through 3 teeth-grinding christmases + new years. its armed thugs killed children in Gaza TODAY. for its biggest funder + profiteer to authorize the killing of one of its own citizens + lie about it is to carry on being fascist. it is not shocking.
You can say no.
the abomination of mayonnaise violating those pomegranate seeds just gave me more insight into cultural chauvinism and why war endures than every political theory book I've read
asked my six year old niece what was wrong with phones and she said "people keep looking at them
and don't listen to you" then asked "so what would you do about it" and she said "feed the phones to crocodiles" so her platform has my full support
The merit that anti-DEI policies revealed
On this second-to-last day of 2025, a vulgar Canada-backed series of mass crime continues into its third year with impunity.
I have mentally pushed past my exhaustion + rage to focus on what I can do today. Support this fundraiser for a family in Gaza. gofund.me/44320e432
2024 was pretty bad and 2025 managed to top that easily and so, I am not eager to welcome 2026, yet... www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rg1...
Invoking Wong Kar-Wai, instantly quelling all doomscrolling. Respect.
light a candle, eat a pomegranate, read in bed, repeat
amid vague mostly-misses on this app, a rare hit
ALL day
This sounds clearly like it would be the ONLY option… if this city weren't run by a mayor who seems to hate the ordinary functionality of cities and people who want Vancouver to be livable and have nice things
I have had to listen to a vexing number of "But I just use it to…" and "Well actually it's better than…" lately. It reminds me of the 90s, when people would nod, smile, & "you go girl" my rants against patriarchy and then go serenely off to another lavish 5-event wedding.
All I want for Christmas is for the worst people in the world to experience some consequences