We’re extending our contest deadline for The Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, judged by Aisha Sasha John, until October 15th! You could win the $1500 Grand Prize, $600 Runner-up prize, or $400 Second Runner-up prize!
Continue reading Contest Deadline Extension Announcement: The Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize!
Review by Annick MacAskill
Last October, my friend David Alexander (Modern Warfare, Anstruther Press, 2016) and I went to an Anstruther Press and Baseline Press chapbook launch to see a few poets we knew. When I heard Aidan Chafe read from his debut chapbook, Sharpest Tooth (Anstruther Press, 2016), I immediately wanted to buy his collection. I was drawn by Chafe’s strong imagery and measured, almost laconic consideration of the destructive ferocity and violence of the natural and human worlds.
When I saw that Chafe had released a second chapbook, Right Hand Hymns (Frog Hollow Press, 2017), I was eager to read his new work. The theme of violence continues in this collection, but instead of exploring this theme in poems about hunting, woods, and wolves, Right Hand Hymns evokes a similar wildness and chaos in poems about family, religion, and mental health.
Continue reading Hot-Tempered Divinity: A Review of Aidan Chafe’s Right Hand Hymns
Compiled and introduced by Rob Taylor Poet and editor Elise Partridge passed away in early 2015, months shy of seeing the publication of her third poetry collection, The Exile’s Gallery (Anansi, 2015), and soon after poems from that book appeared in...
Interview by Kyla Jamieson.
Get to Know is a new PRISM interview series dedicated to introducing you to our favourite writers and contributors by way of a range of questions that touch on quotidian details, public spaces, risk-taking, and advice for young writers. This week it’s our pleasure to introduce you to Jessica Bebenek (@notyrmuse), a writer and transdisciplinary artist currently pursuing an MA at Concordia University in Montreal. Her non-fiction piece “For J” appeared in PRISM’s Spring 2017 issue after being shortlisted for our Non-Fiction Contest; this piece is part of Writing for Men, a non-fiction collection she’s currently working on.
Bebenek’s poetry chapbook Fourth Walk was released this Spring by Desert Pets Press, and she is currently completing her first full collection of lyric poetry, No One Knows Us Here. This Fall, the knitted tapestries in Bebenek’s k2tog series, which explore how women speak to each other through both ‘art’ and ‘craft,’ will be displayed at The Gladstone’s Hard Twist exhibition, alongside the launch of her accompanying chapbook of knitting patterns (k2tog), forthcoming from Berlin’s Broken Dimanche Press. You can find further info on publications and readings on Bebenek’s website.
Interview by Matthew Walsh
Catriona Wright, poetry editor for The Puritan, an online magazine based out of Toronto, came to Vancouver recently to promote her debut poetry collection, Table Manners, at the Tonic Reading Series in June. The poems in this collection move with amazing precision and never go stale, leaving the reader with a richer vocabulary. Wright is a poet with a sharp eye and endless imagination. In this interview, we talked about food, inspiration, and how this book came together in what can only be described as a poetic feast for the mind.
Continue reading Table Manners: An Interview with Catriona Wright
Reviewing the submissions we received in response to our new editorial team’s first call, “The Liminal,” a call intended to take what is often thought of as “marginal” and place it at the centre of our issue and our...
We’re so excited to announce that the following stories have been longlisted for the first ever Grouse Grind Lit Prize for V(ery) Short Forms! We were blown away by the number of submissions and the quality of writing in this...
Bad Ideas
Michael V. Smith
Nightwood Editions, 2017
Interview by Matthew Walsh
Bad Ideas, Michael V. Smith’s newest collection of poetry was just released with Nightwood Editions this year. Described on the first inner page as a “book of anxieties,” the book is full of little things: prayers and dreams that examine identity, queerness, and politics. It was great to catch up with the Lambda Literary Award finalist about his new work, and all his bad ideas.
Review by Nathaniel G. Moore Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Cree-Metis writer from Saskatchewan, whose writing has appeared in a number of literary magazines and anthologies, including Grain, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review, Geist, kimiwan, cîhcêwêsin and Best Canadian Essays. She is the author of the novel Just Pretending (Coteau...