Retail 2012: Brick Books

Reviewed by Jacob McArthur Mooney (Vox Populism, February 3, 2012)

Retail 2012: Brick Books

We begin our annual round-up with those good Londoners over at Brick Books. Brick is presided over by Kitty Lewis, the bon-bon giving, cheek-pinching, favourite aunty of Canadian poetry. It’s editorial input comes from a committee that has been active, in different incarnations, for many years now. The idea of an editorial committee making the decisions, instead of the singular voice of a poetry editor, has gone from eccentric to totally mainstream over the last year or so, as numerous other presses (Goose Lane, Coach House…) have done the same thing.

Four books in the poetry catalogue for Brick this spring. Here they are.

Title: Omens in the Year of the Ox
Author: Steven Price
Release Date: February
Collection Number: Two
Time Since Last Collection: Six Years
Editor-Approved Bumfspeak: “Steven Price’s second collection is part of a long-lived struggle to address the mysteries that both surround and inhabit us. The book draws together moments both contemporary and historical, ranging from Herodotus to Augustine of Hippo, from a North American childhood to Greek mythology; indeed, the collection is threaded with interjections from a Greek-style chorus of clever-minded, mischievous beings—half-ghost, half-muse—whose commentaries tormentingly egg the writer on. In poems that range from free verse to prose to formal constructions, Price addresses the moral lack in the human heart and the labour of living with such a heart. “
Google Says: Steven Price’s 2006 poetic biography of Harry Houdini, The Anatomy of Keys, was one of that year’s most discussed new books. Well-liked, and well-disliked, depending on the table and bar you chose to sit at to talk about it. I loved the shit out of that book and apparently so did the Gerald Lampert Award jury. The author published a novel last year, called Into That Darkness. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on the list. His partner also published a novel last year that, I’m guessing, won the couple’s informal “Total Domestic Sales” Derby by something like a 20-1 margin. Even people that didn’t love Anatomy of Keys responded to how well-structured it was. It was a highly novelistic book of poems, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Into That Darkness, when I eventually get around to it, will be awesome.

Title: Monkey Ranch
Author: Julie Bruck
Release Date: March...

Title: Between Dusk and Night
Author: Emily McGiffin
Release Date: May...

Title: I see my love more clearly from a distance
Author: Nora Gould
Release Date: April...

That was fun. Let’s do another press very soon.

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