The Seaboard Review: April 14th, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 15
“I'm coming to think of reading poetry as an act of rebellion against a world that demands my time and gives back terror.” — Emily Weedon, TSR Contributor and author
April is Poetry Month, and we have two full poetry collection reviews as well as excerpts from recent releases.
You’ll also find a fascinating excerpt from Janice Landry’s newest non-fiction release, Every Little Thing, giveaway news and our popular “Hot Takes” segment.
We still have a (held over) poetry bundle giveaway going on over on our Facebook page. It’s open to anyone with a Canadian mailing address. Three titles from icehouse poetry (an imprint of Goose Lane Editions) are up for grabs:
There is also an exclusive giveaway of a six-book bundle from Penguin Random House for our paid subscribers (all paid subscribers are automatically entered). If you are not a paid subscriber, then let this be the incentive you need to sign up! If that’s not enough, we’ve discounted annual subscriptions by 50% for April, our anniversary month.
Another Giveaway!
How to enter: Comment about your favourite Canadian book on our Instagram post for a chance to win this package from ECW Press!
TSR’s Social Media Links
Poetry Month Reviews:
Excerpts from The Suicide Tourist by Myna Wallin
ManiaI could power the city’s electrical grid with my personal dynamism. I am awake, present, ferociously excited, fascinated by everything. Mania sneaks up on me like Tequila. You’re Maria in The Sound of Music, twirling.The idea that sleeping is a waste creeps in. You are fully dressed, wearing galoshes, crumpled on a chair in front of the droning …
Excerpt from It's Been a Fine Year
It’s Been a Fine Year explores the poet’s immediate relationships—including reflections on mortality and isolation—before, during, and after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. The poet’s senior dog is often used as an entry point to these conversations with the reader.
Other Reviews
Field Work: On Baseball and Making A Living by Andrew Forbes
With the Major League Baseball Season in full swing, Andrew Forbes hits a home run with his new book Field Work: On Baseball And Making A Living. A collection of essays about the relationship between baseball and work. Forbes writes that Baseball is a sport, a pastime, an obsession, a dream ― and for some, it's also a day job.
Excerpt: Every Little Thing by Janice Landry
Janice Landry has won four national awards for her writing and work. In March 2025, Halifax West MP Lena Metlege Diab presented Janice with the King Charles III Coronation Medal from the Government of Canada for her body of work, books, and longtime mental health advocacy.
Michael Greenstein Reviews:
The Poetry of Meditation: Meditation on a Tooth by Ken Sherman
In The Poetry of Meditation Louis Martz analyzes contemplative modes in seventeenth-century Metaphysical Poetry, specifically the poems of John Donne and George Herbert. Whereas Donne imagines a “bracelet of bright hair about the bone,” Kenneth Sherman yokes together disparate elements in the nine sections of his
Hot Takes: Brief Notes on Books Present & Past
(Note: clicking on the underlined link takes you to the book’s publisher page for more information or for purchasing purposes)
Universal Health Care
Danielle Martin, Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians (Penguin Random House Canada, 2018)
Jane Philpott, Health for All: A Doctor’s Prescription for a Healthier Canada (Penguin Random House Canada, 2024)
Few would disagree with the assertion that Canada’s health care system is in trouble. Seventeen percent of adults have no regular access to a health care provider.1 Patients languish on waitlists for specialist access2 and surgeries.3 People are forced to choose between food and filling their prescriptions.4
Some narratives maintain that privatized medicine is the answer. Not only would this option worsen health care access for the large swathe of the population who can’t afford private care, but it distracts us from better solutions.
In their respective books, doctors Danielle Martin and Jane Philpott (former federal Minister of Health) present concrete alternatives for restructuring Canadian health care so that it is affordable and serves everyone. In addition to emphasizing access to primary care, they both advocate for addressing health care “upstream,” by considering social determinants of health such as adequate income and housing. Investments in these areas would not only realize human rights to these basics but, by maintaining health, would lead to savings by lowering demand for medical services “downstream.”
Both books provide not only hope but a plan. With the political will, health care for all is possible. (Contributed by Janet Pollock, a writer and educator living on lək̓ʷəŋən territory in Victoria, British Columbia. Under the pen name Janet Pollock Millar, she writes fiction, poetry, essays, creative non-fiction, and book reviews. Her work has appeared in publications including Herizons, Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead, Pangyrus, and The Malahat Review. Janet works in the Writing Centre at Camosun College.
Sources:
“Better Access to Primary Care Key to Improving Health of Canadians,” Canadian Institute for Health Information, accessed March 13, 2025, https://www.cihi.ca/en/taking-the-pulse-measuring-shared-priorities-for-canadian-health-care-2024/better-access-to-primary-care-key-to-improving-health-of-canadians
“Why Do Canadians Wait So Long for Specialist Doctors?” Canadian Medical Association, accessed March 13, 2025, https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/why-do-canadians-wait-so-long-specialist-doctors
“Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada, 2024,” Canadian Institute for Health Information (4 April 2024). https://www.cihi.ca/en/wait-times-for-priority-procedures-in-canada-2024
“Almost 1 Million Canadians Give Up Food, Heat to Afford Prescriptions: Study,”Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, February 13, 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadians-give-up-food-heat-to-afford-prescriptions-study-says-1.4533476
K.R. Wilson’s Guernica Prize-winning novel, An Idea About My Dead Uncle, tells the absorbing, unsentimental story of Jason Lavoie, a young man of Chinese origin, raised in Canada as a North American, searching for answers about his ethnic heritage. A mystery of long-standing that has consumed the family concerns his uncle LiHuang—known as Uncle Larry—who left Canada in the mid-1970s for China, sent a few letters home, but for 25 years has been incommunicado. After Jason's relationship with girlfriend Louisa falls apart when she discovers his affair, he travels to China to learn what he can about his uncle’s fate. K.R. Wilson writes sharp, uncluttered prose that carries the reader along on waves of dramatic urgency. The scenes set in China are especially effective because of the earnest yet haphazard nature of Jason’s quest and the obstacles fate seems to place in his way. The novel ends in a surreal, shape-shifting dreamscape as Jason’s resolve abandons him and his psyche shatters under the pressures he has placed on himself. An Idea About My Dead Uncle is a poignant debut novel that explores issues of ethnic identity with a clear, unforgiving eye. Even though his actions are not always admirable and sometimes self-destructive, his vulnerability makes Jason Lavoie an appealing narrator, and we set aside our misgivings and stick with him until the end. (Contributed by Ian Colford)
Amal El-Mohtar’s novella The River Has Roots is a retelling of the folktale "Binnorie," which more people may know from Loreena McKennitt's song, "The Bonny Swans." In the folktale, one sister drowns the other at Binnorie mill because she wants her sister's boyfriend. In a classic bit of body horror, the corpse's breastbone is used to make a harp that is strung with the dead girl's hair. When the harp begins to sing on its own, it's taken to the local lord, the dead girl's father, where it outs her sister as her murderer. The River Has Roots departs from "Binnorie" in fascinating ways. This novella has it all. Grammar as music as magic. A sentient river. Two ancient and enchanted willows at the edge of the fairy realm. An asexual and possibly neurodivergent fairy lover. Two sisters whose love for one another defies death. Lush, lyric prose that sings off the page. But to explain more than I already have will spoil this truly lovely story. It is gentle and kind and everything our world-weary souls need right now. (Contributed by Melanie Marttila, Substack: Alchemy Ink)
TSR News
Emily Weedon
For folks out Toronto way, once a month The Caledonian Pub at 856 College St is home to Drunk Fiction, an irreverent night of readings, where readers, listeners, authors and those who love them can gather, drink and nosh! April 22 we celebrate Greg Rhyno's launch of Who By Water, along with Richard Scarsbrook, Hollay Ghadery and Sara Flemington, May 27 is Dennis E Bolan touring his new book, along with Marianne Miller, Aviva Rubin and Sydney Hegele. Check in at https://emilyweedon.com/drunk-fiction for more info!
TSR Subscriber Count
We now have 337 341 subscribers! That number includes our paying subscribers (thank you!) as well as our free ones. Being a paid subscriber (for as little as $5/month) allows us to give out honorariums to our team of contributors, which keeps them dedicated to writing reviews of books we think are worthy of your time. Click the button to see all the Substack options. For the month of April, annual subscriptions are 50% off!
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Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
