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reviews

Chris Benjamin: MacLeod hits all his notes, Animal Person, Alexander MacLeod.

More than a decade ago, Alexander MacLeod showed unusual patience with his debut short story collection, Light Lifting. Patience in his delivery, care in his craft. Not a word out of place, some would say. The collection itself was the result of more than a decade of story writing and publishing one at a time in literary journals. Great short stories take time to master, and the bevy of jury recognitions his debut garnered was more indication MacLeod had put in the work. 
 

Susan Haley: a collection of confessional poetry, Where the Sea Kuniks the Land, Ashley Qilavaq-Savard.

What is the source of joy we find in poetry? That thing that caused the prickle of A.E. Housman’s beard, that transfixed Anne of Green Gables in her desk when the teacher read Tennyson’s line, “The horns of Elfland faintly blowing.” It is what comes not from going about the woodland to see the cherry hung with snow, but evoking it in those very words, and with the delicate metaphor implied.
 

Pre-Order the Winter Issue Today!

 

The forthcoming Winter 2023 issue of The Fiddlehead is now available for pre-order! 

The issue will feature the winning story from The Fiddlehead's 2022 Fiction Contest, as well as work from talented writers such as Alice Zorn, Abu Bakr Sadiq, Kate Cayley, Brian Bartlett and many more.

Pre-orders will be in the mail by the end of January. To order your copy click the appropriate link below: 

Canadian Addresses

John Barton: Gay Canlit Icon: A Review by KIRBY of John Barton's "We Are Not Avatars"

John Barton: Gay Canlit Icon

We Are Not Avatars, John Barton. Palimpsest Press, 2019.

When I told a friend I was about to write a review of We Are Not Avatars (Palimpsest Press, 2019), a collection of John Barton’s essays, memoirs, and manifestos, they looked at me quizzically and suggested I’d set myself on an unrealistic challenge, for how can anyone critique an icon? My friend gave me pause because I never considered John Barton to be one.

Poets as Observers of Space and Absence: A Review by Manahil Bandukwala of Gillian Sze's "Quiet Night Think"

Poets as Observers of Space and Absence

Quiet Night Think, Gillian Sze. ECW Press, 2022.

I first came to Gillian Sze’s work through her chapbook, Fricatives. Fricatives has lingered in the back of my mind for years, and Sze’s latest collection of poems and essays, Quiet Night Think, will no doubt do the same. Comprised of six personal essays interspersed with poems, Quiet Night Think meditates on poetry and motherhood. Where do these intersect, and where do they diverge?

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