In2002, Nightwood published Where the Words Come From: Canadian Poets in Conversation , a successful first-of-its-kind collection of interviews with literary luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Avison, Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier and P.K. Page, conducted by "the younger generation" of poets of the day. Sixteen years later, What the Poets Are Doing brings together two younger generations of poets to engage in conversations with their peers on modern-day poetics, politics and more. Together they explore the world of Canadian poetry in the new millennium: what's changed, what's endured and what's next. An exciting "turn of the century" has evolved into a century characterized by social and digital media, the Donald Trump presidency,#MeToo empowerment and scandal, and Indigenous Truth andReconciliation. Should we look to our poets as our most articulate analysts and critics of these times? Are they competing with social media or at one with socialmedia?

In April, 2000, when the celebrated Canadian poet Al Purdy died, Alberta writer Tim Bowling decided that the best way to pay homage to Purdy would be to devote an entire book to the many fine poets still living and writing in Canada. Where the Words Come From is a comprehensive collection of eighteen interviews, in each of which a younger, less widely known poet questions an older, more established peer on a wide range of issues related to what Chaucer called "the craft so long to learn." Why does a person become a poet? Where do the ideas for poems originate? How do poets feel about such matters as publication, reviews and prizes? What influences and interests drive a poet's creativity? And what value does poetry have for the individual and for the community at large? Poets are rarely given such an opportunity to discuss what matters to them most in their art, and this alone makes Where the Words Come From an important contribution to Canadian culture. But, in addition, the bringing together of generations, from poets in their late twenties to those in their mid eighties, and including all the decades in between, makes this gathering of voices a unique representation of the past, present, and future of poetry in Canada. Among the poets interviewed are many of the most honoured who have ever published in this country: P.K. Page, Margaret Avison, Phyllis Webb, Don Coles, Don McKay, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and Patrick Lane. And the poets asking the questions form the nucleus of Canada's poetry future, including Stephanie Bolster, Carmine Starnino, Ken Babstock, Helen Humphreys, David O'Meara and Julie Bruck. A highly readable treasure trove of talk and insight for affirmed fans of Canadian poetry, as well as for anyone interested in learning more about this most intriguing of art forms, Where the Words Come From celebrates over a half-century of wonderful writing while it looks ahead to a future that promises continued excitement and excellence.

"The novelist and poet Ben Lerner argues that our hatred of poetry is ultimately a sign of its nagging relevance"--

The first print biography of one of Canada's most famous and impactful bands, The Tragically Hip, explores how the group has helped define today's cultural conversations, including Gord Downie's inspirational story and his role in reconciliation with Indigenous people.

The first major literary anthology for queer poets of color in the United States In 2014, Christopher Soto and Lambda Literary Foundation founded the online journal Nepantla, with the mission to nurture, celebrate, and preserve diversity within the queer poetry community, including contributions as diverse in style and form, as the experiences of QPOC in the United States. Now, Nepantla will appear for the first time in print as a survey of poetry by queer poets of color throughout U.S. history, including literary legends such as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Ai, and Pat Parker alongside contemporaries such as Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Robin Coste Lewis, Joy Harjo, Richard Blanco, Erika L. Sánchez, Jericho Brown, Carl Phillips, Tommy Pico, Eduardo C. Corral, Chen Chen, and more!

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! Two poets, one white and one black, explore race and childhood in this must-have collection tailored to provoke thought and conversation. How can Irene and Charles work together on their fifth grade poetry project? They don't know each other . . . and they're not sure they want to. Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is Black, use this fictional setup to delve into different experiences of race in a relatable way, exploring such topics as hair, hobbies, and family dinners. Accompanied by artwork from acclaimed illustrators Sean Qualls and Selina Alko (of The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage), this remarkable collaboration invites readers of all ages to join the dialogue by putting their own words to their experiences.

Kaveh Akbar’s exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar’s second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body’s question, “what now shall I repair?” Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance—the infinite void of a loved one’s absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation—teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness. Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell’s linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives—resonant, revelatory, and holy.

I'm ill-equipped for this. I sit by a fake fireplace that frames a real flame. I've been crossed by two crows today. ‘Multi-vectored, Rogers's poems hum with life and tension, their speaker poised as mother, seer, reporter and daughter. They speak of loss and cold realities (misplaced charms of luck, a tour of an assisted-living facility, coins thrown into Niagara Falls). They also interweave dreams and visions: "O Lion, I am / an old handmaiden; I will not lay the pretty baby in the lap / of the imposter." Simple but evocative, at once strange and plain, Rogers's poems of address ricochet off the familiar "Dear Reader" or Dickinson's "Dear Master" ... Rogers's poems provide instructions for what to leave, what to take and what to fight. They act as selvage between the vast mother-ocean — the mem of memory — and the fabric we make of the uncertain in-between.’ — Hoa Nguyen, The Boston Review ‘How can we live with the kind of pain that worsens each day? Dear Leader explains through bold endurance, enumerated blessings and the artistic imagination. By pasting stark truths over, or under, images of strange, compelling beauty, Rogers creates a collage, a simulation of the human heart under assault, bleeding but unbroken. Part Orpheus, part pop-heroine who can “paint the daytime black,” all, an original act of aesthetic violence and pure, dauntless, love.’ — Lynn Crosbie ’In Dear Leader, Damian Rogers re-invents the same-old poetic lyric to offers us one-of-a-kind insights on childbirth and party bars, rolling blackouts and old rock standards. Here, what looks at first like familiar language always reveals itself to be a rare mineral. And that’s the magic: this is a poetry that refuses to be staged or to succumb to cliché or mannerism, insisting on celebration and condemnation, caution and cosmic vibrations. “Say you’re a poet,” Rogers advises us, tongue-in-cheek, “Maybe you mean / Hi, I have a lot of feelings.” Striking that balance between one-liners and mourning is no small feat.‘ —Trillium Award Jury Citation Praise for Paper Radio: ‘Paper Radio jumped out at me and I can’t say why, but that’s what you want poetry to do, and I never want to say why. Because it’s real and talking to me. Because it’s bloody and horrifying beauty. It’s the Clash and Buckminster Fuller, Auden and Bowie. — Bob Holman Originally from the Detroit area, Damian Rogers now lives in Toronto where she works as the poetry editor of House of Anansi Press and as the creative director of Poetry in Voice. Her first book, Paper Radio, was nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award.

The "World" in Robert Lee Brewer's Solving the World's Problems is a slippery world ... where chaos always hovers near, where we are (and should be) "splashing around in dark puddles." And one feels a bit dizzy reading these poems because (while always clear, always full of meaning) they come at reality slantwise so that nothing is quite the same and the reader comes away with a new way of looking at the ordinary objects and events of life. The poems are brim-full of surprises and delights, twists in the language, double-meanings of words, leaps of thought and imagination, interesting line-breaks. There are love and relationship poems, dream poems, poems of life in the modern world. And always the sense (as he writes) of "pulling the world closer to me/leaves falling to the ground/ birds flying south." I read these once, twice with great enjoyment. I will go back to them often. -Patricia Fargnoli, former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and author of Then, Something

A collection of more than 400 hundred poems from all around the world.