Street Symphony by Rachel Wyatt Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $18.95 ISBN 9-781550-506181 Rachel Wyatt’s short story collection, Street Symphony, opens with an epigraph from Emily Dickinson: “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –That perches in the soul-”. The epigraph is wisely chosen; in several of the 17 stories the protagonists are unhappy, and for good reason – job losses, accidents, partners’ deaths – and thus hope for a brighter tomorrow is what they cling to. These are characters for whom “The universe had tilted.” There’s Jason, in the story “Salvage,” who lost his wife in a car accident after they’d had a fight about her desire to get a pet fish. In the aftermath of her death Jason empties much of his furniture into a dumpster, and accidentally “bakes” some of his wife’s photographs in the oven with the lasagna. “But he sat on the floor and ate it as a penance, charred paper and all. He knew now that he had to suffer in order for the world to tilt back to its proper axis.” The story is a powerful examination of grief, which can certainly defy logic, and it’s also representative of how…

The Two Trees Written by Sally Meadows, Illustrated by Trudi Olfert Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $14.95 ISBN 978-1-927756-43-0 I love receiving new books to review, but sometimes I can’t get to them immediately. Before I had a chance to dive into The Two Trees, a children’s book by Saskatoon writer\illustrator team Sally Meadows and Trudi Olfert, my visiting friend, Flo, picked the book off my kitchen counter and read it. “What did you think?” I asked. “Loved it,” Flo said. “It brought tears to my eyes.” Any children’s story that can move an adult to tears is one I don’t want to wait another moment to read. I took the softcover book to my deck and in the few minutes it took to engage with the sensitively-written and pastel-illustrated story – about the relationship between two brothers, and the younger’s difficulty with the elder’s inability to socially interact “normally” both at home and school – I too, experienced the proverbial lump-in-throat that signifies an emotional connection’s been made. “Wow,” I said, “what a strong metaphor for ‘otherness’”. “I know,” Flo said. “And that word at the end, ‘almost’ … that’s what got me.”…

The New Wascana Anthology Edited by Medrie Purdham and Michael Trussler Published by University of Regina Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $49.95 ISBN 978-0-88977 The beauty of an anthology – and particularly a multi-genre example, like the The New Wascana Anthology, is that readers can sample from a veritable banquet of hand-picked work. This book represents a “best of” combination of two earlier “Wascana” anthologies (poetry and short fiction), plus other important and entertaining work. Editors Medrie Purdham and Michael Trussler’s intent was “to preserve the strengths of the earlier anthologies” and “add a variety of new selections to make a textbook that would be especially amenable to the twenty-first-century classroom.” Within these 551 pages you’ll discover popular works from the canon (American, British, and Canadian) sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with pieces by contemporary Canadians, including many of Saskatchewan’s finest (current or former residents), including Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane, Gerald Hill, Karen Solie, and newcomer Cassidy McFadzean, b. 1989. You may find yourself remembering poetic lines from Shakespeare, Wordsworth or Dickinson, and then be pleased to shake the metaphorical hand of contemporary short story writers like Eden Robinson, Dianne Warren, Rohinton Mistry, Alexander MacLeod (his “Miracle Mile” is placed next to…

Ghost Most Foul by Patti Grayson Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $10.95 ISBN 9-781550-506143 I was able to devote almost unbroken hours to reading Ghost Most Foul by Manitoba writer Patti Grayson, and good thing: I was so swept up in this compelling juvenile novel I wanted to charge through it like an athlete storms through opponents to win a game. For starters, Grayson really knows how to begin a book. The brief prologue hints of a plane crash, a basketball game, and a disruptive ghost. How’s that for disparate elements? My interest was immediately piqued. The credibly-voiced protagonist, Summer, is a rising basketball star at her junior high school. She’s perceptive, caring, and enjoys a pleasant home life, but we learn that Summer has also experienced pain. She was an “easy target” for jeering bullies in elementary school due to a “crazy growth spurt” which put her a head taller than some of her classmates. Summer loses sleep over hurtful comments like “‘How’s the weather up there?’” Like many who are bullied, she tries her best not to attract attention. Summer both idolizes her inspirational coach and feels a very strong connection to her, as…

The Tongues of Earth by Mark Abley Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $16.95 ISBN 9-781550-506105 A swallow’s “Cirque du Soleil”. Prairie fowl “swimming over their reflections”. The belief in “a skinny horse\the colour of burnt almonds\frying in the noonday sun”. If you are a master poet and thus possess the literary chops, numerous book publications, and the lifetime inquisitiveness that’s required, one day a publisher may honour you by releasing your “New and Selected Poems.” This is the pinnacle, and I commend Coteau Books for recognizing that Montreal poet, journalist, editor and non-fiction writer Mark Abley is worthy of such a title. The Tongues of Earth represents the best of what poetry can do: enlighten, entertain, empathize, and lift us from our familiarity for moments at a time to offer a bird’s eye view – or an insider’s view – into what it might be like to live a different life. This is a large, sweeping map of a book. Abley transports us to disparate locations that include the caves of prehistoric art in Chauvet, France; a cathedral in Girona, Spain; Montreal’s Chinese herbal shops “with powdered\centipedes and gallbladders in jars;” and to Banff’s towering Mount…

Wascana Lake Through 4 Seasons by Sheena Simonson Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $34.95 ISBN 978-1-927756-40-9 When I learned I was reviewing the hardcover photography book Wascana Lake Through 4 Seasons, I thought: Cool, after I’m done, it will make an excellent gift for someone. I’m a born-and-raised Saskatchewanian who now lives on Vancouver Island, and let me tell you, folks, Sheena Simonson’s wonderful publication is so evocative of my home province, this book’s not leaving home. Simonson’s compendium tells the story of a province – historically, socially, seasonally, recreationally, and flora and fauna-wise – not just the story of how Wascana Lake came to be, and how that urban body of water delights visitors year-round. In her afterword to this beautifully-designed and easy-to-read book, the author-photographer explains that some “328 kilometres of trail were covered in order to come up with the final 325 images”. The vibrant photos – some full page spreads, others collages – document Simonson’s “oasis,” and were shot in Wascana Centre between the Albert Memorial Bridge and the Broad Street Bridge. There are myriad photos of the behemoth Legislative Building – particularly impressive in the hoarfrosted winter scenes and…

Conditional Written by Andrew McEwan Published by Jackpine Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $15.00 ISBN 978-1-927035-17-7 Vancouverite Andrew McEwan’s Conditional, a saddle-stitched chapbook, contains two alternately playful and serious poems, or meditations. The first, “Spreading Sheets,” takes inspiration from a quote about stratus clouds, derived from an 1803 text called Essay on the Modification of Clouds (by Luke Howard). In the resulting text-which alternatingly appears on symbolically transparent vellum pages in a free verse style and on gray cotton pages in prose poem blocks-the poet asks “what is this fog?” Fog, here, is up for interpretation. The author alludes to Vancouver’s “visibility issues,” and hovering mainland\mists,” to condensation from the bathroom mirror,” and perhaps also to the fog of human thought as we wait in queues, “cannot see the object of our mourning,” and listen to financial and real estate market forecasts. Or perhaps it is none of these. McEwan keeps us entertained and guessing with disparate thoughts. “Of the animals seen today only the blanket of crows migrating past reads as symbolic,” he writes. And in the next two lines: “A rezoning is in progress. Everything is on sale except for the waterproof outerwear.” This first poem registers…

A Year at River Mountain by Michael Kenyon Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $19.95 ISBN 978-1-927068-04-5 Sometimes a book is a river, drawing us in. Such is A Year at River Mountain, by heralded BC writer Michael Kenyon. The enigmatic 68-year-old narrator of Kenyon’s introspective novel is, like most of us, trying to make sense of his life. The former stage and screen actor’s removed himself from the manic “engine,” “blue-green anger” and “loneliness” of the western world to seek harmony and practice acupressure in a Chinese monastery. He writes: “I am at River Mountain because I have turned my back on my family, history, country.” His former world included an estranged wife and son and his professional roles; stark contrast to the valley, mountains, temples, plum trees, bamboo forest and fellow monks that surround him now. It sounds pacific, but there are memories to wrestle with, and desire, and near the river beneath the monastery, nomadic tribes spar over boundaries and hungry children go missing. The nameless monk’s past and present converge; he has traded “monks for players, master for director” as he goes about his daily routines of prayers, meditation, chores (ie: sweeping leaves…

Bone, Fog, Ash & Star by Catherine Egan Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $12.95 ISBN 9-781550-505931 Imagine a world in which “every stone and every tree has secrets to tell.” Where dragons, Faeries and great birds called “gryphons” are commonplace, and one has to be granted a permit to have a child. In this fantastical universe some have the ability to create protection “barriers” when trouble arises. Invisibility is possible, as is shapeshifting, and the manipulation of the elements. Potions are made from “the spinal juice of a Tian Xia invisible eel,” and the Thanatosi—strange, faceless, acrobatic beings called upon by Great Magic to serve as assassins—are a very real threat. As a writer who deals in realistic fiction, I have often wondered about my literary cousins who pen fantasy and science fiction. For me it would be intensely arduous to fabricate mythical geographies, beings, creatures, and names, thus I appreciate those writers who have the ability to stretch their imaginations in such far-flung directions and create these otherworldly novels. What a gift. Bone, Fog, Ash & Star is the third book in Catherine Egan’s trilogy The Last Days of Tian Di. The star of the…

Homage to Happiness by Judith Krause Published by Hagios Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $17.95 ISBN 978-1-926710-29-7 In her fifth collection, Homage to Happiness, Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Judith Krause integrates a multitude of subjects and voices to create a savoury feast of poems. The Regina poet throws her pen’s light on insomnia, family, horses, Regina (a long poem, “Cathedral Village,” is dedicated to that enviable neighbourhood), travel, love, poets, science projects, news items, the hourglass, the number 13, food (poems include “Gingerbread” and “Chili Tomatoes”), and much more. Discovering the surprise of where she’ll go next is half the pleasure of this book, which features a cover painting by William Perehudoff against a “happy” yellow background. The Acknowledgements reveal that the life story of SK-born abstract expressionist painter Agnes Martin inspired some of the work; I admire those writers like Krause who can take on another’s persona and get so deeply “inside” that they make readers believe they’re engaging directly with the subject. In the long title poem, Krause gives us both a literal and interior portrayal of the artist, Martin. She writes: “my large hands\at ease, hanging over\the ends of the armrests, as exotic\as two bunches of bananas”…