news | Tuesday April 14, 2026

The Book of Z Named a Finalist for the 2026 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize!

We are delighted to share that The Book of Z by Rahat Kurd is a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize! In The Book of Z, Kurd writes in the imagined voice of Zulaykha – “the wife of Aziz in the Qur’an” – considering herself as separate from her Abrahamic lineage which has cast her indelibly (and misogynistically) as a temptress. In poems bright with desire and longing, The Book of Z reconsiders mystical possibilities, offers new readings.

Awarded annually by the BC and Yukon Book Awards, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize is given to an exceptional work of poetry from an author based in Yukon or British Columbia. A huge congratulations to Rahat Kurd for this well-deserved honour! Check out all of this year’s finalists here.

news | Monday April 13, 2026

Hot Off the Press! Beautiful Unknown Future Has Arrived!

We’re delighted to announce that Beautiful Unknown Future by Taryn Hubbard has arrived! This new collection reflects with candour and wit on the precarity we share with the nonhuman world. Refusing false optimism, Beautiful Unknown Future layers the chaos of domestic life with the detachment of the corporate environment. Written while Hubbard’s children were young, these poems hold space for messy feelings about motherhood and care, the climate crisis, family ghosts, and office dynamics.

An excerpt from “Sweetie”:

“Sweetie, please come back to the staff room. Sweetie? We
need you to soothe us and ask us those questions that’ll make
us feel better about our actions. We need to rehearse our
rationales so they will sound authentic when the time comes
to testify. We like it when you connect the dots between our
heartbreaks for us. It’s your gentleness we demand right now.
Sweetie, come on. Someone left cookies here.”

Written in the shadow of compounding global crises, Beautiful Unknown Future looks critically to a future centred around tenderness, resilience, and love. Pick up your copy here

news | Sunday April 12, 2026

Save Your Prayers – Send Money in The Tyee

Save Your Prayers – Send Money by Jónína Kirton is featured in an article in The Tyee about poetry collections to check out for National Poetry Month! Kirton’s latest poetry collection boldly takes on the wellness industry. Kirton delves into disability politics through the lived experience of a seventy-year-old Métis woman and recovering New Ager. Frank, moving, and forthcoming, this is a collection you can’t miss. Peruse all of the poetry suggestions in The Tyee here.

news | Saturday April 11, 2026

Poem by Jónína Kirton Read at the BC Legislature

We were very excited to learn that on March 31, British Columbia’s Labour Minister the Honourable Jennifer Whiteside shared Jónína Kirton poem “Fraser River Forgetting” from the collection Standing in a River of Time as a reflection with the BC Legislature. Congratulations, Jónína! What a fantastic poem to meditate on.

An excerpt from “Fraser River Forgetting”:

“around New West we find many mentions of Simon
the one the river is now named after
his Métis interpreter and guide forgotten

there are no statues no plaques devoted to
my great-great-great-grandfather, Waccan
a.k.a. Jean-Baptiste Boucher
a voyageur who spoke many languages
and is said to be the most famous
Métis man this side of the Rockies
he remains unnamed in most history books
there are no statues no plaques devoted to
his place in the settling of these lands

now buried at Fort St. James
I think I just felt him roll over
did he know what he was bringing?”

Listen to Minister Whiteside’s reading at the legislature here.

news | Friday April 10, 2026

The Book of Z in The Winnipeg Free Press

melanie brannagan frederiksen reviews The Book of Z by Rahat Kurd in The Winnipeg Free Press, saying “Kurd deftly draws together mystical traditions and contemporary pragmatism, mythic and historical time … From this conjunction flows a moving, expansive ‘poetics of solidarity.’”.

Read the complete article here.

news | Monday April 6, 2026

sometimes, forest Shouted Out in The New Quarterly Review

selena mercuri shouts out sometimes, forest by Elee Kraljii Gardiner in The New Quarterly’s National Poetry Month reading list. sometimes, forest develops a theory of hylofeminism (“hylo” from the greek “forest matter”) that attends to a deep, communal connection with nature as a relational way of being with the self and the more-than-human world. See all of mercuri’s book recommendations here.

news | Sunday April 5, 2026

Sarah Waisvisz in The Toronto Guardian

The Toronto Guardian has run a piece on Lambda Award–finalist Sarah Waisvisz! Waisvisz is the author of Heartlines: A Love Story. Waisvisz chats about her creative works, Kingston, and more. Learn more about her in this day-in-the-life feature.

news | Saturday April 4, 2026

Daphne Marlatt to Receive Honorary Degree

Award-winning author, educator, and activist Daphne Marlatt (Shadow Catch, Intertidal, The Gull, and more) is set to receive an honorary degree from the University of British Columbia! UBC gives honorary degrees to individuals who have made significant contributions to society. Marlatt will receive a Doctor of Letters. In the announcement outlining their spring 2026 degree recipients, Sachi Wickramasinghe writes of Marlatt, “her groundbreaking poetry collections and prose works have reshaped the possibilities of feminist and experimental writing in Canada.” A huge congratulations to Daphne Marlatt! Read the entire announcement here.

news | Friday April 3, 2026

Save Your Prayers – Send Money Has Arrived!

Save Your Prayers – Send Money has arrived! The latest book from Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize–finalist Jónína Kirton boldly takes on the wellness industry, considering disability politics through the lived experience of a seventy-year-old Métis woman and recovering New Ager. A hybrid collection that moves fluidly between prose and poetry, Save Your Prayers – Send Money weaves intergenerational trauma and its impact on health through the daily realities of chronic pain and illness.

An excerpt from “life expecancy”:

“it’s 2025 and the rich are already buying time
they cheat death a decade at a time
while others are consistently considered

an unnecessary expense”

These poems explore where healing might lie and how a peace might be found whether we heal or not. The weft supporting them all is the importance of belonging, of blood memory and cellular memory reaching back to our earliest Ancestors. Pick up your copy here.

news | Thursday April 2, 2026

You're Invited to the Talonbooks Spring 2026 Launch!

Join us at the Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall for the launch of the Talonbooks spring 2026 titles! Come help us celebrate this season’s authors and books. Here’s the lineup! It’s going to be an amazing evening.

Taryn Hubbard will read from Beautiful Unknown Future
Jenn Ashton (attending digitally) will read from Growing My Way Home
George Bowering (attending digitally) will read from Pearl
Jónína Kirton will read from Save Your Prayers – Send Money
Elee Kraljii Gardiner will read from sometimes, forest
Nicole Raziya Fong will read from SUBTEXT and
Danielle LaFrance will read from Verbal Violence!

The launch will be hosted by the author of Future Works, Jeff Derksen!

A live stream will be available on the Talonbooks YouTube page. Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Hope to see you there!

Talonbooks Spring Launch
Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall
Vancouver, BC
May 1, 2026
Doors at 7 p.m., readings begin at 7:30 p.m. PDT