Sunday, December 30, 2018

The Fulsome Phoenix

Torpid cinder-biting is over, at least for 2019. I’ve decided to resurrect this blog for the next fifty-two weeks, beginning January 4 (next Friday). A mini-review of 300 to 600 (or so) words will be posted here every Friday during the Year of the Pig. All reviews will concern contemporary Canadian poetry, most of those featured collections published during the past three or four years.

I’ve decided not to post my usual ‘best of’ yearly review. For whatever reason – bleaker metaphysical state, chance, stepping out for unfamiliar genres and authors – the past year was (mostly) a disastrous reading experience when it came to non-fiction or non-poetry fiction. I’ve always treated the ‘end of’ posts as celebratory recommendations, so, this year, didn’t want to grouse, or, if positive, overpraise or deposit a severely truncated list. If I had to choose one favourite, though, it’d probably be Ivan Turgenev’s wonderful, loosely-linked short-story collection, The Hunting Sketches of 1852 (available under various titles), my edition being the translation of B.G. Guerney.

Heartfelt Holidays!