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Celebrate a night of poetry with NeWest at Audreys Books on April 30th @ 7pmHosted by NeWest’s own, the award-winning Jennifer Bowering Delisle and launching the brand new collections ALL WRONG HORSES ON FIRE THAT GO AWAY IN THE RAIN and The Beauty of Vultures along with recent releases Attic Rain and Dreams of the Epoch & the Rock. With four fabulous readers, this is a must-see NeWest poetry line up!
NeWest Press wishes to acknowledge that the land on which we operate is Treaty 6 territory and a traditional meeting ground and home for many Indigenous Peoples, including Cree, Saulteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux.
NeWest Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Status of Women of the Alberta Government, and the Edmonton Arts Council for support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
Many thanks to our friends at Audreys Books for working with us for this event.
ABOUT THE READERS
Sarain Frank Soonias is a Cree/Ojibwe writer and artist residing in Red Deer, AB. Soonias’ practice is inspired by his evolving relationship with intergenerational experiences, (de)colonization, trauma, spirituality and healing. His work has appeared in ARC Poetry Magazine, Canadian Literature Review, Carousel, Carte Blanche, Filling Station, and more.
Wendy McGrath is a Métis poet, writer, and artist living in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 Territory. She is the winner of the inaugural Prairie Grindstone Prize. Her writing embraces multiple genres—fiction, poetry, spoken word, and creative non-fiction in her Santa Rosa Trilogy, continues her exploration of the working-class.
Samantha Jones (she/her) is an earth scientist, writer, and editor based in Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary, Alberta). She describes herself as mixed-race, or both Black Canadian and white settler, with roots in Nova Scotia, Québec, and Ontario. Her full-length poetry collection, Attic Rain, as well as her two experimental poetry chapbooks Site Orientation (The Blasted Tree) and wallpaper (Model Press) explore her lived experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sam is one of six members in the Land and Labour Poetry Collective who co-edited the anthology I’ll Get Right on It: Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis, forthcoming with Roseway Publishing.
Jaspreet Singh is the author of acclaimed poetry collections, non-fiction, novels, short stories, and a memoir. More and more his work engages with deep time and the ecological crisis. His most recent books are “How to Hold a Pebble” and “Dreams of the Epoch & the Rock,” both with NeWest Press (Alberta).
ABOUT THE BOOKS
A captivating search through one family’s history, ALL WRONG HORSES ON FIRE THAT GO AWAY IN THE RAIN is a stunning examination of intergenerational trauma and its effect on Indigenous voices. Aftershocks and fragmented memories ricochet through this collection, bringing with them strength, intensity and uninhibited beauty. Sarain Frank Soonias makes his poetic debut with a splash that ripples far outside his own work, and marks the entrance of a new, important voice in contemporary poetry.
The interplay between photography, nature and poetic form is on full display in Wendy McGrath's and Danny Miles' collaborative new work The Beauty of Vultures.
This innovative collection takes readers into the surprisingly chatty world of birds, whose avian artistry and poignant plumage mimics the formally and structurally inventive tones found in each poem. The language wings its way between funny and serious, poignant and morbid, while always drawing parallels between the poets thoughts and the cameras eye. From peahens telling off their elaborately festooned romantic partners, robins empty eggs recalling air raid tests after WWII, to seagulls serving as harbingers of humanity's ongoing crimes against nature, each unit of photography melds seamlessly with its poetic doppelgänger.
In Attic Rain, her debut poetry collection, Calgary based poet and writer Samantha Jones puts obsessive-compulsive disorder centre stage. Lines and words repeat, write over themselves, and read top to bottom and back again, emphasizing themes of self-doubt, anxiety, and negotiation for control. Attic Rain is a love story nested inside an overarching narrative of self-compassion and awareness. It tours childhood and adulthood, lingering on settings and scenarios typically considered ordinary and unremarkable. The poems in this collection are part of an ongoing act of resilience and an honest account of moving through a world obsessed with normality.
In Dreams of the Epoch & the Rock, Singh deepens his exploration of climate, language, migration, decolonization, and the Anthropocene with an energy both acrobatic and intimate. Interweaving the personal, local, global, and geologic with hidden histories, these poems invite possibilities and defy neat closures, leaving readers with an indelible view of deep time. An ancestor’s words in a diary, a child’s chalk drawing, solar panels that smile like an ancient god, the Great Oxygenation Event: the gaze of these poems is vast, eclectic, and awestruck, while also remaining clear-eyed about the futures that await our planet.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Audreys Books Ltd., 10702 Jasper Avenue,Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
