rob mclennan, everybody! What more do I need to say? (But I do say it, in this review). @robmclennan.bsky.social @ucalgarypress.bsky.social #booksky reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/rob-mclenn...

Wednesday’s review, gang: Dawn Macdonald on Jacob Szamalek’s Inner Space, in a translation by Kasia Beford for HarperVia. “Character work and the quotidian is key to the novel,” she argues as she takes a look at this space station-set contemporary SF.

I am pretty stoked to be on this list! Nelson Ball (1942-2019) seems to have been quite a lovely person and generous poet; being listed here is like the next best thing to meeting him (for us who missed that chance)

New issue just dropped! www.theseaboardreview.ca/p/the-seaboa... #canlit #bookreviews

The magic of chapbooks. reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/anstruther...

Comma Splice -- Gene Splice -- Pumpkin Splice

October 5 is Do Something Nice Day. Small acts of kindness can have a big impact. Of course, our minds go directly to books! -Read someone a story -Gift a book -Say thank you to a bookseller or a librarian Our website: https://bit.ly/46M0lM2 ##DoSomethingNiceDay

I have three tiny poems up at the fine online journal "talking about strawberries all of the time". One is based on a dream I had less than two weeks ago so that may be a record for time elapsed from dream to publication.

“Both of Joseph’s 21 Things books belong on the shelves of all Canadians who care about how we live together as peoples within the boundaries of a nation state.” @yukondawn.bsky.social reviews this necessary title for #truthandreconciliationday www.theseaboardreview.ca/p/21-things-...

Jenna Butler's prose poetry collection Magnetic North -- I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one but it turned out to be pretty good! @ualbertapress.bsky.social #booksky reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/jenna-butl...

This has been by far my most popular post on Bluesky, even though I'm mostly here as a poet

Containers and linkages in D.S. Stymeist's Cluster Flux: reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/ds-stymeis... #booksky

@yukondawn.bsky.social reviews Zane Koss's Country Music in Issue 70 of The Ex-Puritan: ex-puritan.ca/story-as-ele...

Was delighted to have a chance to review Kyle Flemmer's hilarious space-themed experimental poetry book, Supergiants, over at Strange Horizons. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... @kyleflemmer.com @wolsakandwynn.bsky.social #booksky

I program in Squirrel, i.e. a mixture of SQL and R while leaving many small files littered around my drive #Rstats

Agnes Etherington Art Centre--who even are they? What will they think of next? reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/agnes-ethe... #booksky

"8. When two birds sing the same song, they're the same bird." #TodaysPoem #poetry Bird's Ten by Dawn Macdonald (@yukondawn.bsky.social) from Northerny (2024 @UAlbertaPress.bsky.social) tinyurl.com/2vnr7s47

There's NewPoetry today from Dawn MacDonald (@yukondawn.bsky.social‬). newpoetry.ca/2025/08/29/u...

Let’s talk about the pleasures of reading books we don’t understand! Featuring Dennis Cooley's enjoyably nonsensical poetry collection, abecedarium. reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/dennis-coo... @ualbertapress.bsky.social #booksky

This luxury treatment is a practical solution to a deadly fungal frog infection go.nature.com/3Jo7r3t

Big thanks to Dawn Macdonald for writing so insightfully about Lost Signal. And thanks to my old friend Jack for spreading the word. I love it when worlds collide.

"It’s a bit presumptuous of me to “review” Ken Babstock’s Swivelmount." ... but I do so anyway reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/ken-babsto... @coachhousebooks1.bsky.social #booksky

Excerpt from Dawn Macdonald's poem "Animal Snap," gently printed on the card game it interprets. Read two of Dawn's poems, "Animal Snap" and "Robert Graves' 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑀𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑠 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑒 𝐸𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛," in ISSUE 2.1: longconmag.com/issue-2-1/da... @yukondawn.bsky.social

The Whitehorse Public Library has finally started getting in some newer poetry! Thank you library! So, that means I get to do a review of Conor Kerr’s 2023 collection, Old Gods. reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/conor-kerr... @nightwoodeditions.bsky.social #booksky

It was such a treat to curate this fun list!

Thanks OKD for revisiting my poem through the lens of genre

"The poems in Micheline Maylor’s 2017 University of Alberta Press collection Little Wildheart centre on the body: its erotics, its genetics, its dissolution and its consonance with the animal." New review at reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/micheline-... @ualbertapress.bsky.social

And so to simplify: poetry = art with words prose = art with sentences novels = art with narrative visual poetry = art with letters Ferdinand Kriwet, "Rundscheiben" (1960/63).

ah more things to look forward to around here :/

Really pleased to have work in this gorgeous issue of long con

Omar Ramadan's compelling debut collection This Sweet Rupture reviewed (by me) at Alberta Views: albertaviews.ca/this-sweet-r... @ualbertapress.bsky.social

really enjoy R Kolewe's work, a fellow physics-trained poet!

"This is a twisty ride, at the level of the line and of the narrative arc." New review of Mahaila Smith's sci-fi poetry collection Seed Beetle: reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/mahaila-sm... @stelliform.press

"The result is fluid, meditative, and singular." Thank you to @yukondawn.bsky.social for including The Absence of Zero by @rkolewe.bsky.social in this great roundup of 10 Canadian poetry titles for @literaryhub.bsky.social. lithub.com/10-canadian-...

Got a chance to curate a list of 10 Canadian poetry books for Lithub! lithub.com/10-canadian-... @talonbooks.bsky.social @invisibooks.bsky.social @douglasmcintyre.bsky.social @houseofanansi.bsky.social @arsenalpulp.bsky.social @newestpress.bsky.social @bookhugpress.bsky.social

"In the dream (I) had never known about shoes. My feet could read and found ways of winding up earth into sensible chunks, or dollops." "Breakfast, 3 a.m." by @yukondawn.bsky.social, new poetry out today at OKD. 📝

Groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press: 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023) gets a mention at LitHub! / @invisibooks.bsky.social @literaryhub.bsky.social ; abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/07/grou...

New review of Lisa Baird's When Whales Went Back to the Water: reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/lisa-baird... #booksky @ualbertapress.bsky.social

I've got work in carte blanche: carteblanchemagazine.com/issue-51/mac...

Fellow Canadian poets, is there a publisher you've especially loved working with? I had a great time with UAlberta Press but it's blind submissions each time so am looking at all submission options for book #2 and feeling my lack of industry knowledge

"There needs to be a term that’s like “fan fiction” but for poetry." New review of Jessi MacEachern's delightful book about books, Cut Side Down. reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/jessi-mace... @invisibooks.bsky.social

It gets smoky in the Yukon every summer and it's only since it started hitting big cities down South we found out it's bad for you. Who knew? I think we grew up thinking woodsmoke is fine because it's "natural." :D

It was an unexpected honour to receive this prize. Reading at the event was amazing & also put me way out of my element. Feeling reconfirmed in priorities of getting back to the writing itself, publishing where I can, the next poem, next book, the real stuff. griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2025-c...

"This writing isn’t completely slimy, slime isn’t ever an answer." Reviewing Freddie Mason's open access cultural studies text on slime and stickiness: reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/freddie-ma... @punctumbooks.bsky.social

Dawn Macdonald, winner of the First Canadian Book Prize, on stage with Anne Michaels. Amazing night at the Griffin Poetry Prize!! Congratulations to everyone nominated, and to the big winners Durs Grünbein and Karen Leeder! @yukondawn.bsky.social

something rather unexpected has occurred!

rob mclennan's "A halt, which is empty" came out in 2019 but it's worth your time now. (Thanks, rob, for review copy!) Review at reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/rob-mclenn... @robmclennan.bsky.social

Tomorrow!

Review of Em Dial's brilliant In the Key of Decay. "Well who knew that climate catastrophe, misgenderings, racial otherings, and a headache disorder could be so much fun?" reviewsofbooksigotforfreeorcheap.substack.com/p/em-dials-i... @palimpsestpress.bsky.social #booksky #canlit

“We commissioned a survey,” said Yukoner Party strategist Lance Andreesen in an interview, “and we found that the top concern of Yukoners this election cycle is, which party is most Yukonic?” weaverton.com/2025/05/03/t...