news | Tuesday August 22, 2023

Two Talonbooks Titles on CBC's Fall Poetry Recommendations

There’s a hint of autumn in the air, and with it comes CBC’s fall poetry recommendations! We are delighted to see two forthcoming Talonbooks titles, the berry takes the shape of the bloom by andrea bennett and No Town Called We by Nikki Reimer named on this list of stellar autumn collections. We can’t wait to share these works with you, but for now, please enjoy a sneak peek:

the berry takes the shape of the bloom by andrea bennett is an incredible collection, its poems entwining around enmeshed experiences of gender, family, trans pregnancy, abuse, fear, and becoming. These poems capture particular moments in time, butmay recur in any given present: sometimes what surfaces is anxiety or anger, sometimes love or eagerness. Some poems bear witness; others hold grudges or shake free of them.

An excerpt from the berry takes the shape of the bloom:

“As a child I pictured all the different ways I
could be alone. Whatever cake I would make
would last as long as I wanted it to and my
entire household would know my favourite
things because I would be my entire household.
Not a thread out of place on the area rug. A
whole wall full of books. Always a pineapple on
the kitchen counter. When nobody loves your
unruly body it is hard to believe that anyone
ever would.”

No Town Called We by Nikki Reimer is a moving and witty collection that punches through the veils of complacency and greed that shape the cultures of the petrostate. These poems are meditations on an emergency, dispatches from wombat burrows and prairie hospitals.

An excerpt from “No Town Called Home”:

“hey, it’s your hometown calling
we’ve paved over the lyric “i”
cornered the market
on the word “expansion”…

dear cat,

“what decade

is it today,

what century?”

what poem
reinscribes wetlands
decimated by the Stoney Trail expansion?

we’ve got densification for days
rosy glasses
sandbags ready
prairie grasses waving in the shadows of
the function of the city and
the function of the cat”

We are so excited for all of the great poetry coming our way this fall. To find 31 other incredible titles, check out CBC’s complete list here.