“This is no quaint voice from the Land of Anne. Suffused with our era’s geist and angst, which have penetrated to the rural periphery, Bailey is a sharp-eyed, clarion-voiced witness.” —Richard Lemm

Forecast: Pretty Bleak is a fresh look at life in rural PEI full of fascinating character sketches. These poems explore climate change, work, family, love, and the idea that sometimes all you've got is hope for better weather and more favourable winds tomorrow.

Confessional, candid, and firmly grounded, these poems shine a light on a corner of our country and lift up voices that are rarely heard.

Chris Bailey, a graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa, wrote over 216,000 words on the subject of productivity on his blog, A Year of Productivity, during a yearlong productivity project where he conducted intensive research, as well as dozens of productivity experiments on himself to discover how to become as productive as possible. To date, he has written hundreds of articles on the subject and has garnered coverage in media as diverse as the New York Times, the Huffington Post, New York magazine, TED, Fast Company, and Lifehacker.

Chris Bailey's profile page

Praise for Chris Bailey and Forecast: Pretty Bleak
"I grew up in Southwest Saskatchewan, about as far from a big body of water as you can get, yet these poems by a writer 'baptized by the sea' speak in the voices of my prairie ancestors, rough and colourful and true. Few in this country write so eloquently and lyrically about the lives of working people. Chris Bailey throws his net of wonders from his father’s boat and pulls in all the tragedy and humour a life can hold. Often what gets caught are wise lines that break the heart: 'Maybe it’s best to learn the hard things young / and never forget.' I won’t forget this book." --Lorna Crozier, author of After That
“Chris Bailey’s plainspoken, clear-eyed poems transmit the perils of ‘Existence / carved from sandstone, baptized by sea’ with an eloquence that remains rooted in both its vernacular music and the harsh demands of work. Scrupulously spare yet deeply moving, they recall the work of Alden Nowlan. This is essential reading.” —Don McKay, author of Lurch
"Clear-eyed and unflinching, but also compassionate, Chris Bailey writes of the realities of commercial fishing in contemporary PEI, 'of blood and sea.' His poems showcase a storyteller’s gift for character and narrative tension, attending to the desires, loves, and fears that accompany us through our days." —Annick MacAskill, author of Shadow Blight