Wanderlust
Thistledown Press / 24 August 2017

Wanderlust: Stories on the Move Anthology edited by Byrna Barclay Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $20.00 ISBN 978-1-77187-135-8 How does a book idea begin? Wanderlust: Stories on the Move started when seven reputable Saskatchewan writers enjoyed a barbeque together. In her introduction, editor Byrna Barclay explains that the idea for this anthology was spawned when Shelley Banks expressed a desire to tour and read with her fellow prose-writing diners at a Regina barbecue. Barclay compiled and edited the work, and though no theme was suggested, she found that “in every story a person embarks on a journey of discovery”. Along with Banks and Barclay, Brenda Niskala, Linda Biasotto, James Trettwer, Kelly-Anne Riess, and Annette Bower share imaginative journeys, and the result’s a literary road trip that takes readers to places near and far, real and imagined. Niskala transports readers to a Norse trading voyage in 1065 in her exciting novel-in-progress, “Pirates of the Heart,” and Biasotto to favoured Italian locales. Trettwer takes us to a fictitious potash company, and Riess has contributed a moving novel chapter about a twenty-one-year-old who’s never been kissed, and is leaving Saskatchewan for the first time. “Tara had never seen a…

correction line
Thistledown Press / 25 November 2009

correction line by Dennis Cooley Published by Thistledown Press Reviewed by Kelly-Anne Riess $15.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-50-8 Dennis Cooley’s long poem correction line is both touching and poignant, recreating memory and the prairie landscape. Cooley shows his many talents, as his work is vernacular, funny, anecdotal and personal, touching on his own family history. correction line plays with ideas around creation and how things, like poetry, are produced. For instance he writes in response to his surrounding geography, but also from what he’s learned studying others’ poetry and literary theory over the last 30 years or so. A correction line is a device used to compensate for the curve of longitude. And Cooley’s book follows the line between his beginnings in Estevan, Saskatchewan to his current home of Winnipeg. It also traces a poetic line to American poet Charles Olson, writing: /an O pening of the field/ At the beginning of the book, Cooley almost quotes Eli Mandel’s poem “Life Sentence” in its entirety. Mandel was the first poet from Estevan, and now Cooley is the second. Cooley’s words are more than semantic, as he uses them for visual effect. On one page, for example, the words physically create the appearance…