When Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament (for the second time in a year!) on December 30, 2009, he punted many vital bills into oblivion. But he also inspired hundreds of poems after Mansfield Press announced this government-toppling anthology. This book gathers a range of responsesÑfrom outrage to slapstickÑby acclaimed poets (including Canada's first Parliamentary Poet Laureate and several winners of the Governor General's Award for Poetry), previously unpublished poets and, to paraphrase Stephen Harper, ordinary working Canadians.

Stuart Ross published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street wearing signs like “Writer Going To Hell,” selling over 7,000 poetry and fiction chapbooks. A long-time literary press activist, he is a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective, Editor at Mansfield Press, and for eight years was Fiction & Poetry Editor at This Magazine. He is the author of two collaborative novels, two story collections, seven poetry books, and the novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew, which co-won the 2012 Mona Elaine Adilman Award for Fiction on a Jewish Theme. He has also published a collection of essays, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer, and co-edited the anthology Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament. Buying Cigarettes for the Dog won the 2010 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. His most recent poetry book is You Exist. Details Follow. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

Stuart Ross' profile page

Stephen Brockwell cut his writing teeth in the '80s in Montreal, appearing on French and English CBC Radio and in the anthologies Cross/cut: Contemporary English Quebec Poetry and The Insecurity of Art (both Véhicule Press, 1982). George Woodcock described Brockwell's first book, The Wire in Fences, as having an "extraordinary range of empathies and perceptions." Harold Bloom wrote that Brockwell's second book, Cometology, "held rare and authentic promise." Fruitfly Geographic won the Archibald Lampman award for best book of poetry in Ottawa in 2005. His most recent book is Complete Surprising Fragments of Improbable Books published by Mansfield Press. Brockwell currently operates a small IT consulting company from the 7th floor of the Chateau Laurier and lives in a house perpetually under construction.

Stephen Brockwell's profile page

Psalm-like and surreal, diverse and surprising, Something Burned Along the Southern Border maps a seldom-recorded region of Canada, the joint of WindsorÐDetroit, and beyond. Like a scent, this poetry tugs, pulls open our memories. It smells like pancake houses, maple, diesel, tobacco, blood, and forest brush.Ó (Emily Schultz, author of Songs for the Dancing Chicken and Heaven Is Small)