news | Wednesday April 2, 2025

You're Invited to the Talonbooks Spring 2025 Launch

You’re invited to celebrate the new spring releases from Talonbooks! Please join us at the Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall on Friday, May 23, to welcome the following books to the world:

allostatic load by Junie Désil
Crowd Source by Cecily Nicholson
Future Works by Jeff Derksen
Revolutions by Hajer Mirwali and
Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore!

The launch will be hosted by andrea bennett, author of the berry takes the shape of the bloom.

The Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall is wheelchair and scooter accessible. There is a parking lot behind the venue in the alley between East 3rd and East 4th Avenues. Attendance is free! Snacks and drinks will be served. A live stream will be available on the Talonbooks YouTube channel. See you there!

Talonbooks Spring 2025 Launch
Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall
1955 McLean Drive
Vancouver, BC
May 23, 2025
Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; readings begin at 7:30 p.m.

news | Wednesday May 7, 2025

Asian Heritage Month 2025

May is Asian Heritage Month! To mark the occasion, we want to shine a light on some innovative, incisive, and all around phenomenal titles authored by writers of Asian heritage that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading them. Whether you’re looking to be rallied, moved, engrossed, challenged, entertained, or given something entirely new to chew on, here are some recent books we think you’ll love:

Have you read cop city swagger, the latest poetry collection by author and activist Mercedes Eng? This new and timely collection conducts a threat assessment of Vancouver’s police. Holding close lived and living connections to the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown neighbourhoods, Eng juxtaposes the police’s and the city’s institutional rhetoric with their acts of violence against marginalized people, presenting a panoramic media montage of structural harm and community care.

An excerpt from “Chinatown Public Safety”:

“Muriel and Su and the dogs
murmurate up the Pacific coastline
travel pattern learned from starling kin
deployed to avoid being tracked

taking the inland freeway back is quicker
but they know how much the dogs need to play
to play with each other
play in the sand breathe in the salted air
run without command.”

Order your copy of cop city swagger here.

Hot hot hot off the press is Revolutions, the debut book by Toronto-based poet Hajer Mirwali. Revolutions sifts through the grains of Muslim daughterhood to reveal two metaphorical circles inextricably overlapping: shame and pleasure. In an extended conversation with Mona Hatoum’s artwork + and –, Revolutions asks how young Arab women – who live in homes and communities where actions are surveilled and categorized as 3aib or not 3aib, shameful or acceptable – make and unmake their identities. Working between a Palestinian, Iraqi, and feminist Canadian poetics, this collection spirals and collapses as we turn and re-turn around its circles.

An excerpt from “January 23”:

“+ and –, I have come too far to feel nothing.

Wait for me in the dark room. Strip apart my
arms. Hear me change. Daughter of + and –.
Daughter. Daughter. More daughterly with
every rotation.

… Yes, a very good daughter who loves
her motherlands and her God.

A daughter more and less.

A daughter + and –.

Never the same twice.”

Order your copy of Revolutions here.

A finalist for the 2025 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, Wet by Leanne Dunic is a must-read poetry and photography collection. In Wet, a transient Chinese American model working in Singapore thirsts for the unattainable: fair labour rights, the extinguishing of nearby forest fires, breathable air, healthy habitats for animals, human connection. In photographs and language shot through with empathy and desire, Wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe.

An excerpt:

“My cousin told me about Mao’s campaign during the Great Leap
Forward to kill the four pests: flies, rats, mosquitoes, sparrows. The
people banged pots incessantly to prevent sparrows from resting. Soft
stones dropped from the sky.

What other animals fell?

Fifty-five million people. My ancestors.

In this block, poisoned bread is left on the sidewalk for pigeons. For
cats. For dogs. The hungry.”

Pick up your copy of Wet here!

Behind the Moon is the latest play by award-winning author Anosh Irani. In a Mughlai restaurant in Toronto, a late-night visit from a mysterious stranger rattles the cage and shatters the peace. Now the restaurant’s employee Ayub must face reality, the family he’s left behind, and the dreams he’s abandoned, all while keeping the restaurant shiningly clean. A story of connection, exploitation, love and loss, and beginning anew, Behind the Moon is not to be missed.

An excerpt:

“JALAL: Why did you give me the food?

AYUB: You said it was an emergency.

JALAL: I’m not sure if you believed me.

AYUB: Does it matter?

JALAL: I would be grateful if you told me.

AYUB: Fine. I gave you the food because you passed the test.

JALAL: Test? What test?

AYUB: You did not touch the glass. When you chose your food,
you did not touch the glass.”

Pick up your copy of Behind the Moon here.

No Signal No Noise by A Jamali Rad is the hybrid text you need to read. When Zero, the hero of our story, stumbles upon a mysterious manuscript, they’re thrown into a journey across centuries, continents, and concepts. They travel throughout the Muslim world, from Sumeria to India to Baghdad. They learn about Europe as other and outside. They’re guided by the cryptic mirror the manuscript provides as it traces a history of the number zero.

An excerpt from “Thinking Without Knowing”:

“Zero mocks
language builds
barriers around

nothing
makes
nothing

knowable taints
knowledge laughs at the
tools made for
enclosure”

Pick up your copy of No Signal No Noise here.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t recommend you check out Flow: Poems Collected and New, which compiles the impeccable poetry of the late Roy Miki. Miki was one of Canada’s most innovative poets; an influential critic, founder of the literary journals Line and West Coast Line, and as a noted activist, became a prominent figure in the movement for Japanese Canadian redress. All of Miki’s roles and concerns coalesced in his poetry, carefully attuned to the complex relationships between language and power as they map and interrogate the layers of history enfolded within place and subjectivity.

An excerpt from “The Alternate Sources of Energy Are Drying Up”:

““memory dies on the prairies”
i thought that up
when i was 12 & under
the railway bridge over
the assiniboine river

cool nights
between the ties
stars here & there

in the corners
the metal pylings
meet to form
nests of pigeons

they’ve reproduced
over the river
in this space
where perspective
beckons below the brown
water moves as a street does”

Pick up your copy of Flow here.

Happy Asian Heritage Month, Talonites. This month and all months, we wish you good reading.

news | Wednesday May 7, 2025

Hot Off the Press! Revolutions Has Arrived!

It’s here! Revolutions, the debut book by Hajer Mirwali, has arrived and is available now at a bookstore near you! Revolutions sifts through the grains of Muslim daughterhood to reveal two metaphorical circles inextricably overlapping: shame and pleasure. In an extended conversation with Mona Hatoum’s artwork + and –, Revolutions asks how young Arab women – who live in homes and communities where actions are surveilled and categorized as 3aib or not 3aib, shameful or acceptable – make and unmake their identities.

An excerpt from “January 23”:

“+ and –, I have come too far to feel nothing.

Wait for me in the dark room. Strip apart my
arms. Hear me change. Daughter of + and –.
Daughter. Daughter. More daughterly with
every rotation.

… Yes, a very good daughter who loves
her motherlands and her God.

A daughter more and less.

A daughter + and –.

Never the same twice.”

Working between a Palestinian, Iraqi, and feminist Canadian poetics, Revolutions spirals and collapses as we turn and re-turn around its circles. Order your copy here.

news | Friday May 2, 2025

Klara du Plessis on Visuality and Aurality in Poetry

Klara du Plessis covers Chambersonic by Oana Avasilichioaei alongside Margaret Christakos and Jay Ritchie in an essay about visuality and aurality in poetry that appears in the current issue of Arc Poetry Magazine (106).

From the essay: “Chambersonic extends what is presumed possible on the page … Chambersonic publishes six QR codes alongside some of its sections—these lead to recordings of interrelated sound compositions that add over an hour’s worth of listening to the reading experience. The sound pieces don’t necessarily reproduce the printed text as a give-and-take between word and voice, but rather complement, interpret, dilate, and/or compress versions compiled on the page.”

To read the complete essay, pick up a copy here.

news | Thursday May 1, 2025

An Interview with Cecily Nicholson

Rob Taylor interviews Cecily Nicholson about her latest poetry collection Crowd Source.

An excerpt from their conversation:

“RT: Crows aren’t the only crowds that gather in Crowd Source, which contains crowds of crowds … Coming together are also protesters, mourners, consumers, salmon, blackberries, trees, cars, pollution…

Did studying Vancouver’s crow migration spark your thinking about the ways the city “collectively amasses”? Or was it the other way around, your interest in crowds leading you to the crows? What can the crows teach us about how Vancouver does, or doesn’t, come together?

CN: My work often touches on collectivity, perhaps now more than ever in our precipitously balanced world. I’m aware of a range of ways that people gather, how some forms of crowd are sanctioned and encouraged, for commercial consumption say, and how gatherings to counter a status quo are often stigmatized and policed. An outlined body suggests an absent one, a death perhaps. I was thinking about how crows gather when one of them dies. Also, about how deaths at the hands of police or as a result of state violence require ongoing rallying cries.

Studying crows’ movement, communication, and relations was a grounding experience. They informed my thinking significantly; I tried to stay open to that influence and to take lessons from their ancient ways of gathering and dispersing.”

To read the interview in its entirety, click here

news | Tuesday April 29, 2025

allostatic load on The Next Chapter

Ryan B. Patrick shares his current must-read Canadian poetry collections, allostatic load by “Junie Désil”: https://talonbooks.com/authors/junie-desil among them, on CBC’s The Next Chapter.

Listen to the episode here.

news | Thursday April 24, 2025

An Interview with Stephen Collis

Photo Credit: Dana Graham Lai

Rebecca Saloustros chats with Stephen Collis about A History of the Theories of Rain and The Middle.

From the article: “Collis acknowledges that one of the reasons we keep hurting the Earth is because of our disconnection from it. However, that disconnection doesn’t come from being stuck in an office all day away from hiking trails. Instead, it comes from seeing ourselves in isolation and thinking everything revolves around us, which Collis sees as detrimental. Instead, he’d like us to place ourselves in the “context of the wider web of life” all the time. Thus, he chose migration and displacement as his central theme in The Middle.”

Enjoy their conversation here.

news | Tuesday April 22, 2025

Crowd Source on CBC Books

The new poetry collexction Crowd Source by the award-winning author Cecily Nicholson is featured on CBC Books’ article on Canadian books to read for Earth Day!

Rich with Nicholson’s exceptional poetic attentions, Crowd Source is a text for all concerned with practising ecological futurities befitting corvid sensibilities.

View all of CBC Books’ recommendations here.

news | Tuesday April 15, 2025

Wet in MĀNOA: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

Alexa Cho reviews Wet by Leanne Dunic in MĀNOA: A Pacific Journal of International Writing.

Of the collection, Cho writes: “Wet does not hold back in explaining all the ways gentrification and labor exploitation hurt Singapore’s citizens. Numerous short vignettes and poems are simply the narrator living her life, but she constantly witnesses heart-wrenching moments in the process. … Wet is replete with dynamic and original forms of storytelling, breaking barriers between genres and incorporating images to visualize what cannot be described.”

Read the complete piece here.

news | Sunday April 13, 2025

An Interview with Jeff Derksen

BC BookWorld interviews Jeff Derksen about his poetry journey to date and his latest collection, Future Works.

From the interview:

“BCBW: You are also involved in the visual arts community. How does that intersect with your written poetry?

JD: In any of the cities I’ve lived in—Vancouver, Nelson, Calgary, New York, and Vienna (Austria)—I’ve always been part of those two communities—artists and writers—and that sparked a lot of friendships and collaborations. … Being part of two communities in that way, I’ve never felt like an isolated or solo poet and the ideas and dynamics of contemporary art have definitely shaped how I write poetry and how I think about poetry in the world. For me, it has been communities of writers and artists and others who have influenced my work, more than an individual writer.”

Read the complete piece here.

news | Friday April 11, 2025

Wet Named a Finalist for the 2025 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize

A huge congratulations to Leanne Dunic whose poetry and photography collection Wet is a finalist for the 2025 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize!

In Wet, a transient Chinese American model working in Singapore thirsts for the unattainable: fair labour rights, the extinguishing of nearby forest fires, breathable air, healthy habitats for animals, human connection. In photographs and language shot through with empathy and desire, Wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe.

You can view all of the titles shortlisted for the 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes here. Congratulations to all of the finalists!