It’s a poetry launch for music lovers! Help celebrate the release of MANOR’s RANSOM by Cam Scott (ARP Books) and No Depression in Heaven by ryan fitzpatrick (Talonbooks).https://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781927886960/cam-scott/manors-ransom
https://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781772016956/ryan-fitzpatrick/no-depression-in-heaven
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A poetry collection of politically-inflected personal collage and city poems, MANOR’s RANSOM is the second installment of an ongoing life-poem by Cam Scott that began with ROMANS/SNOWMARE. Gathering scraps of language in both open prose and verse, it sketches social space with psychological enclosure, skipping with ease through moments both mundane and charged. MANOR’s RANSOM guides the reader through its interminable tunnel, but offhand twists and sound play distract from the sadness of an unending track by nudging the tone just to the left of doom in surprising and inventive ways.
Written during country music’s most recent ascent in popularity, No Depression in Heaven by ryan fitzpatrick has ten “tracks” that each tip language out of key. Dwelling on whether it is best to look backward to a seemingly better past, longing for a way to make things great again, or to stare into the abyss of the future, gambling that entry into paradise will provide release, No Depression in Heaven riffs on our latter-day anxiety, asking how we respond to bad times and what it means to hold onto something toxic because of the comforts it affords.
So if you love poetry and you’re never too far from your headphones, join us for this lively evening of poetry readings followed by an author discussion. If you can’t attend in person, a live stream will be available on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/ghiaUIA4PN8
Cam Scott is a poet, critic, and non-musician from Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty 1 territory. His books include WRESTLERS (Greying Ghost), ROMANS/SNOWMARE (ARP) and THE VANISHING SIGNS (ARP). He is artistic director of send + receive, a festival of sound art and experimental music, and sings in the punk band Age of Self.
ryan fitzpatrick is the author of four previous books of poetry, including Sunny Ways (Invisible) and Coast Mountain Foot (Talonbooks). Their creative nonfiction book Ace Theory, an essay-in-fragments about asexuality, will be published by Book*Hug in 2026. They are a former editor at filling Station magazine and helped organize the Flywheel reading series. They were the 2024–2025 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta. You can find them online at https://ryanfitzpatrick.ca/. They live in Calgary.
Event Venue
McNally Robinson Booksellers, McNally Robinson for Kids, 1120 Grant Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3M, Canada
