In this experimental review, Jérôme Melançon fucks around with poetry, which is possibly the only suitable response to Kirby’s debut hybrid-genre memoir Poetry is Queer (Palimpsest Press, 2021). ISBN: 978-1-98928-786-6 | 250 pp | $19.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY everything being a matter of gravity and lift everything — being — matter Kirby you look at me now through dozens of googly eyes — funny how we cover ourselves like that, with the images
Jade Wallace traces a genealogy of philosophy and flora, in John Nyman‘s latest full-length poetry collection A Devil Every Day (Palimpsest Press, 2023). ISBN 978-1-990293-46-7 | 88 pp | $19.95 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY John Nyman’s sophomore poetry collection A Devil Every Day is a book preoccupied with contemporary incarnations of evil. Several of the poems in the book read like character studies of the Devil, as for instance ‘The Genuine Devil,’ where “The
Concetta PrincipeDiscipline n.v. (Palimpsest Press, 2023)ISBN: 978-1-99029-349-8 | 216 pp | $19.95 CAD / $18.95 USD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Recounting Concetta Principe’s struggle to complete her PhD in interdisciplinary humanities as a middle-aged woman, Discipline n.v. is a lyric memoir whose page-or-less-long sections often resemble prose poetry. At its most essayistic, the book explores the disreputable origins of modern social science and humanities disciplines alongside their development by postmodern theorists (Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, etc.)
Anita Lahey (writer) & Pauline Conley (illustrator)Fire Monster (Palimpsest Press, 2023)ISBN 978-1-99029-337-5 | 220 pp | $29.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Fire Monster is an incredible blend of art forms — in this graphic novel, writer Anita Lahey and illustrator Pauline Conley collaborate to blend poetry with illustration and sometimes music to create a fictional retelling of the 1976 Main-a-Dieu, Nova Scotia wildfires. It details the generational effect the natural disaster had on the
As a Reviews Editor, I try to be conscientious about only ordering ARCs that are likely to actually get reviewed for CAROUSEL. Publishers, especially small presses, often run on tight budgets, and I don’t want them to spend time and money sending out books that will languish on a shelf. But I’m also only human, and sometimes I miscalculate, and we end up with more books than review slots, or a book I would have
Nisa MalliAllodynia (Palimpsest Press, 2022)ISBN 978-1-99029-306-1 | 80 pp | $19.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Allodynia (Palimpsest Press, 2022) is the debut poetry collection from bpNichol Chapbook Award-winning poet Nisa Malli. In Allodynia, Malli builds on her explorations of pain and illness, moving her poetry further into the sci-fi and speculative realms. The collection is divided into three sections: ‘Pain Log,’ ‘Ship’s Log,’ and ‘Pain Log.’ The poems from the two ‘Pain Log’ sections
Sadiqa de Meijeralfabet / alphabet (Palimpsest Press, 2020)ISBN 978-1-92679-460-6 | 100 pp | $15.95 CAD / $14.95 USD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Surely there is no one to better explore the limits, beauty and vagaries of language than a poet, someone who has dedicated their life to engaging in a deep relationship with words. Sadiqa de Meijer, who has previously published two poetry collections, turns her attention to memoir in Alfabet / Alphabet. Subtitled ‘a
Theresa KishkanThe Weight of the Heart (Palimpsest Press, 2020)ISBN 978-1-98928-747-7 | 120 pp | $15.95 CAD #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY It isn’t a spoiler to say that we never do find out exactly how much a heart weighs in the latest novella from prolific author Theresa Kishkan, but what is clear is that the heart weighs more than we might be given to expect. The story foreshadows this figurative surprise with its opening lines: “The closer I got
David LyMythical Man (Palimpsest Press, 2020)ISBN 978-1-989287354 | 70 pp | $18.95 CAD #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Reading David Ly’s Mythical Man (Palimpsest Press, 2020) feels not unlike being on late-night Twitter, where text slips between gossip and discourse, where a quippy tone is an obvious filter for latent ennui. This debut collection is young and lustful, tech-savvy and oppression-aware. The poems in it that interested me most were the ones slightly removed from realism, that indulged a
John Nyman follows the mine shafts of Klara du Plessis‘ book of poetry Hell Light Flesh (Palimpsest Press, Sep 2020) and reports back on the glistening subterranean horrors he finds there. This traditional review examines the unsettling juxtaposition of artistry and rationalism with the terrifying triad of patriarchy, violence and trauma. ISBN 978-1-989287521 | 130 pp | $18.95 CDN / $17.95 USD #CAROUSELreviews Enormous in scope yet sharply-defined in subject, Klara Du Plessis’ second full-length