news | Saturday March 21, 2026

World Poetry Day 2026

March 21 is World Poetry Day! If you’re looking for some exciting works of poetry to mark the occasion with, we’d love to recommend some recent titles for you to sink your teeth into.

1. Spells, Wishes, and the Talking Dead: ᒪᒪᐦᑖᐃᐧᓯᐃᐧᐣ ᐸᑯᓭᔨᒧᐤ ᓂᑭᐦᒋ ᐋᓂᐢᑯᑖᐹᐣ mamahtâwisiwin, pakosêyimow, nikihci-âniskotâpân by Wanda John-Kehewin

A finalist for the Raymond Souster Award, Spells, Wishes, and the Talking Dead: ᒪᒪᐦᑖᐃᐧᓯᐃᐧᐣ ᐸᑯᓭᔨᒧᐤ ᓂᑭᐦᒋ ᐋᓂᐢᑯᑖᐹᐣ mamahtâwisiwin, pakosêyimow, nikihci-âniskotâpân weaves together history with personal experience. Wanda John-Kehewin plays with form, space, and language, demonstrating which magics cannot be suppressed. Pick up your copy here.

2. No Depression in Heaven by ryan fitzpatrick

Shine up your spurs, gussy up for a visit to the Grand Ole Opry, and dig into No Depression in Heaven. Written during country music’s most recent ascent in popularity, this poetry “LP” features ten “tracks” that each tip language out of key. Order your copy here.

3. SUBTEXT by Nicole Raziya Fong

Divided into four parts, SUBTEXT peers into the imperceptible psychic strata created by intergenerational trauma, confronting the challenge of finding one’s place in a sensorium of concealed realities and obscured memories. These poems take a multifaceted approach to questions of diaspora and selfhood, incorporating visual and textual elements that dialogue with one another and ask readers to negotiate the unsteady shoals of identity and history. Get your copy here.

4. Pearl by George Bowering

George Bowering’s final book of poetry, Pearl, sprawls in search of the next glimmering insight, tugging at different threads with a multifarious large-heartedness. Touching, ribald, and cheeky, Pearl reflects on a life well-lived and well-written. Secure your copy here.

5. A Family of Dreamers by Samantha Nock

Longlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, A Family of Dreamers delves into the complexities of growing up in rural northeast British Columbia and the love and grief that blooms there. In this debut collection, Samantha Nock weaves together threads of fat liberation, desirability politics, and heartbreak while working through her existence as a young Indigenous woman coming of age in the city. Pick up a copy here.

6. No Town Called We by Nikki Reimer

Longlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award, No Town Called We writes through the death of elders, social panic, and the climate crisis via the lens of the multiply disabled, female-coded body approaching midlife. With an undeniable humour and irrepressible care, No Town Called We dissects griefs of many shapes. Order your copy here.

7. sometimes, forest by Elee Kraljii Gardiner

New poetry collection from Vancouver’s Poet Laureate Elee Kraljii Gardiner sometimes, forest alternatively rails at and desires a fluid beloved, sometimes forest, sometimes lover, friend, mother, or an absence the speaker yearns for in herself. But the coastal temperate rainforest continues foresting, existing independently of the speaker’s wants or needs, a place of both refuge and harm. Get your copy here.

8. Verbal Violence by Danielle LaFrance

Verbal Violence weaponizes the email as a poetic form. This book confronts capitalism’s managerial style guide for saying nothing at all with the fiery and empathetic conscience of the managed, their cri de cœur cracking the straight-faced bureaucracy of our most banal communications. Pick up a copy here.

9. Save Your Prayers – Send Money by Jónína Kirton

Save Your Prayers – Send Money takes on the wellness industry from the perspective of a seventy-year-old Métis woman and recovering New Ager. These poems explore where healing might lie and how a peace might be found whether we heal or not. Order your copy here.

10. Stigmata by Scott Jackshaw

Stigmata draws inspiration from a broad archive of texts and practices, including apophatic theology, body horror, gardening, queer theory, classic films, poststructuralism, and bad sex to create a treacherous adventure through the cross-currents of sexual deviancy and religion, helped along by a bitter sense of humour, to the limits of faith and body. Get your copy here.

11. Crowd Source by Cecily Nicholson

With eyes on the skies, Crowd Source continues Cecily Nicholson’s attention to contemporary climate crisis, social movements, and Black diasporic relations. This is a book for all fascinated by corvid sensibilities. Order your copy here.

12. Beautiful Unknown Future by Taryn Hubbard

Refusing false optimism, Beautiful Unknown Future layers the chaos of domestic life with the detachment of the corporate environment. Written in the shadow of compounding global crises, Beautiful Unknown Future looks critically to a future centred around tenderness, resilience, and love. Pick up your copy here.

Happy World Poetry Day, everyone!