Great Regulars: Astute readers, such as Michael W. Higgins,

president of Fredericton's St. Thomas University, who has long championed [Margaret] Avison as a true poet who celebrates God and doesn't compromise her art in so doing, will, of course, immediately catch the reference to Mark 8:24 (King James Version) with Avison's pointed quotation marks hugging the phrase "like trees walking," a simile both timely and timeless, given Higgins's abiding reverence for Avison's sapientially attuned verse, which he describes as drawing heavily upon "the Christian narrative, a detailed familiarity with the Scriptures and an enlightened appreciation of doctrine."

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: On Other Words: Avison's awesome afterlife

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This crab-wise approach gets thrown in the pot along with a genuine sorrow at circumstance and weariness with the intellect's downgraded predicament; what's boiling over in this début is a humane love, and a love for humane acts, appropriate to our culturally frightened Present. Some of [A.J.] Levin's poems have a cubist's mania about them that can only lend itself to fresh insight."

Pythagoras

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: On Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 9

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K. I. Press, a Winnipeg writer originally from northern Alberta, became a mother for the first time last month. Her most recent work, Types of Canadian Women (Gaspereau, 2006), was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther and ReLit Awards for Poetry. She teaches creative writing and literature at Red River College in Winnipeg. Zachariah Wells: "Press is delightfully irreverent, her writing laced with irony and wit . . . Press handles tone beautifully."

Angles

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: On Other Words: On Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 10

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Easter's Poet (April 12):
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

LVIII

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: On Other Words: On Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 11

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(He even writes reviews of [imaginary] films in verse!) [David] McKelvie brings his interest and study of mathematics to his poetry to create a remarkable amalgamation between the two. His use of rhyme--sometimes peculiar, sometimes startling, often sublime--imbues his work with that edge of difference and, in so doing, almost demands it be read aloud so its primeval purely sonic enchantment can be fully appreciated."

Lunar Self-Portrait

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: On Other Words: On Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 12

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[Nancy-Gay Rotstein's] most recent collection, 2005's This Horizon and Beyond: Poems Selected and New, contains "an emotionally charged cycle of poems that, written over a 20-year period and purposely held for publication as a unit, captures the changing stages in a family's life. Throughout, Rotstein's work is suffused with an awareness of time, the realisation that we are living in history and a sensibility that goes beyond the surface of what is being described." (from the publisher)

Eyeing the Shark:
Homage to Irving Layton at Maimonides Geriatric Centre

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: On Other Words: On Other Words: In celebration of planetary poetry month 13

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