Guest editor Rob Taylor, author of the widely acclaimed collection The News, brings a passionate ear for rhythm, an eye for narrative compression, an appetite for vital subject matter, and an affinity for warmth and wit to his selections for Best Canadian Poetry 2019. The fifty ruggedly independent poems gathered here tackle themes of emergence, defiance, ferocious anger, gratitude, and survival. They are alive with acoustic energy, precise in their language, and moving in their use of the personal to explore fraught political realities. They emit a cloud of invisible energy, a charge.

Featuring work by:

Colleen Baran • Gary Barwin • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Ali Blythe • Marilyn Bowering • Julie Bruck • Sara Cassidy • Sue Chenette • Chelsea Coupal • Kayla Czaga • Sadiqa de Meijer • Adebe DeRango-Adem • Chris Evans • Beth Follett • Stevie Howell • Danielle Hubbard • Dallas Hunt • Catherine Hunter • Sonnet L’Abbé • Ben Ladouceur • Tess Liem • D.A. Lockhart • Jessie Loyer • Annick MacAskill • Domenica Martinello • Laura Matwichuk • Katie McGarry • Jimmy McInnes • A.F. Moritz • Alexandra Oliver • Alycia Pirmohamed • Marion Quednau • Claudia Coutu Radmore • Shazia Hafiz Ramji • Shaun Robinson • Yusuf Saadi • Rebecca Salazar • Ellie Sawatzky • David Seymour • Kevin Spenst • Mallory Tater • Souvankham Thammavongsa • Russell Thornton • Daniel Scott Tysdal • William Vallières • Katherena Vermette • Douglas Walbourne-Gough • Cara Waterfall • Gillian Wigmore • Ian Williams

Rob Taylor was born and raised in Port Moody, BC, and lives in Vancouver with his wife and son. He is the author of two books of poetry: The News (Gaspereau Press, 2016) and The Other Side of Ourselves (Cormorant Books, 2011). In 2017, The News was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and in 2010 the manuscript for The Other Side of Ourselves won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize. He was the poetry editor at PRISM international in 2014–15. Rob has run a blog devoted to Canadian poetry, Roll of Nickels, since 2006. In 2015 he received the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for the Literary Arts as an emerging artist. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Rob Taylor's profile page

Anita Lahey's poems have appeared in the Malahat Review, the Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, This Magazine, in Ottawa buses as part of the Transpoetry competition, and in The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry. She has won the Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest, Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem, and first prize for poetry in Pagitica's annual literary competition. Lahey is the editor of Arc: Canada's Poetry Magazine and lives in Montreal.

Anita Lahey's profile page

Gabeba Baderoon is a poet and scholar and the author of the poetry collections, The Dream in the Next Body and A Hundred Silences. She received the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry and teaches Women's Studies and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Kate Clanchy's three collections Slattern, Samarkand, and Newborn, have recently been gathered into a Selected Poems, published by Picador. She has won the Writer's Guild Award, The VS Prichett Prize, and the BBC National Short Story Award for her prose. Her novel, Meeting the English, was shortlisted for the Costa Prize in 2013.

Carolyn Forché is a poet, translator and essayist, and editor of two best-selling poetry anthologies, Against Forgetting and Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English: 1500-2001 (co-edited with Duncan Wu). Her poetry books include Gathering the Tribes, The Country Between Us, The Angel of History and Blue Hour. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is a Professor of English at Georgetown University, where she also directs The Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice.

Amanda Jernigan is the author of two books of poetry, Groundwork (2011) and All the Daylight Hours (2013). The first was shortlisted for the League of Canadian Poets' Pat Lowther Award and included in the National Public Radio's list of best books of the year; the second was named a best book of the year in the National Post. She is the editor of The Essential Richard Outram (2011) and author of a monograph on the poetry of Peter Sanger.

Amanda Jernigan's profile page

Praise for Best Canadian Poetry 2019

"[These] books are must-haves for libraries, schools, and intellectually well-intentioned bedside nightstands across the country."—Quill & Quire

Praise for the Best Canadian Poetry Series

“The wide range of writers, forms and themes represented here make it a great jumping-off point for readers who might be interested in Canadian poetry but are unsure about where to start.”—Globe and Mail

“Buy it, or borrow it, but do read it.”—Arc Poetry Magazine

“A magnet, I think, for the many people who would like to know contemporary poetry.”—A.F. Moritz, Griffin Poetry Prize winner

“The Best Canadian Poetry series offers an annual sampling of voices and experiences—a little slice of Canadiana that may be appreciated beyond borders as well.”—Examiner.com

“An eclectic and diverse collection of Canadian poetry . . . a wonderful addition to anyone’s bookshelf.”—Toronto Quarterly

“Bits of eternity, arranged alphabetically.”—Merilyn Simonds

“Canada’s most eloquent, profound, humorous and meditative writers, ranging from the seasoned and well known to the new and upcoming.”—Broken Pencil