news | Wednesday August 16, 2017
The latest issue of CV2 (Summer 2017; Vol. 40, No. 1) celebrates the Iceland–Canada Art Convergence and features work on survival, cross-cultural exchange and legacy, book reviews, and interviews. And may we say, it is a beautiful issue, featuring art on the cover by Icelandic artist Heimir Björgúlfsson.
Inside, five new resonant poems by Métis/Icelandic poet Jónína Kirton are published, and Colin Smith has written a double book review (found on page 163) of Stephen Collis’s Once in Blockadia and Danielle LaFrance’s Friendly + Fire. See highlights from his review on both books’ web pages. We were also immensely complimented in the review’s final paragraph (page 166), and we thank Smith for acknowledging our incredible authors and their place in the cultural vanguard:
… Over the last few years, Talonbooks has ramped up the political stakes of its poetry list. With the emergence of titles like Cecily Nicholson’s Triage (2011), Jeff Derksen’s The Vestiges (2013), Nikki Reimer’s DOWNVERSE (2014), Catriona Strang’s Corked (2014), Jordan Abel’s Injun (2016), Clint Burnham’s Pound @ Guantánamo (2016), and Donato Mancini’s Same Diff (2017) – and these are only the books I know; there may be others – we should consider Talon a producer of some of the most sociable and politically astute experimental poetry in current-day Canada. Add the Collis, add the LaFrance, add Mercedes Eng’s upcoming Prison Industrial Complex Explodes (due out Fall 2017), and we have a handsome brick of poetry here. Huck these books at the heads of power.
What more can we say?