Jade Wallace imagines what it would be like to interview Tanis Franco‘s poetry debut Quarry (University of Calgary Press 2019) in this experimental review. Asking questions in their own words and then borrowing and remixing lines from the book to craft ‘answers,’ Wallace literalizes what it means for a text to enter the literary conversation. ISBN 978-1-55238-981-2 | 80 pp | $17.99 CAD / USD #CAROUSELreviews Jade: Let’s begin with the human body. How would
Books are prophetic in Deirdre Danklin‘s fiction-form experimental review set in a psychic convention, but the books’ predictions reveal more about themselves than they do about their customer coming to have her fortune told. You don’t want to miss this strange little powerhouse review of 8 entire books. #CAROUSELreviews Remember conventions? Lily Dale is full of psychics. Held in an old Victorian mansion, this convention has no humming fluorescent lights, no inky brochures, no laminated
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
Though he has crafted what feels like a slick trailer, Mark Laliberte‘s animated experimental review of Dani Spinosa‘s OO: Typewriter Poems (Invisible Publishing, 2020) ultimately performs not only its prescribed analytic function, but also a meta-discursive one, bringing to the fore questions about what it even means to review a book. Laliberte’s review is thus a fitting response to Spinosa’s text, which challenges its readers to reconsider the limits of its own chosen genre of
Khashayar Mohammadi gives us a review in the form of a poem — adding a new harmony to the polyvocal chorus of Canisia Lubrin‘s exploratory, book-length poem The Dyzgraphxst (McClelland & Stewart, 2020). In doing so, Mohammadi focalizes crucial concepts in the text and reveals the expanse of its spheres of inquiry. ISBN 978-0-771048-69-2 | 176pp | $21.00 #CAROUSELreviews I the Dyzgraphxst is oceanicthe Dyzgraphxst is directionally blended into the Ithe Dyzgraphxst is the cursor
K.B. Thors revels in the historic breadth and folkloric depth of Factory Girls (Action Books, Nov 2019), which is the third book of poetry by the award-winning Japanese author, editor and professor Takako Arai. ISBN 978-0-900575-84-6 | 99pp |$18 USD #CAROUSELreviews It is the night shift in an abandoned spinning factory There is only a single light bulb here The spools of thread turn by themselves … This is what happens “When the Moon Rises”