Is it too ambitious to call chapbooks the quintessential medium for Canadian poetry? Certainly many do. And it is true that in these tiny works of ephemera have been published some of the most experimental and best work of Canadian poets such as Gwendolyn McEwen, Jay Millar, and of course bp Nichol. Moreover, like the […] More »

A war broke out this month. A war not to the east but to the south, that has been little covered by the media. It comes complete with human rights violations, murder, and corruption caused by the exploitation of the Amazon. The blood of this war is on Canada’s hands. On Friday, June 5, an […] More »

It’s only fair that the 11-day Celebrate Canada! festival should kick off with National Aboriginal Day. After all, what better way to commemorate this crazy multicultural mosaic of a country than by launching its celebration in honour of the first people to make it awesome? We’ve compiled a list of things to see and do […] More »

Our friends at Maisonneuve, the Montreal quarterly of all things eclectic and curious, recently overhauled the design of their magazine. Here’s the contrast: Maisonneuve has always marched to the beat of a different drummer, which is why we, and thousands of other readers, like reading it. Personally, I always liked the simplicity of the old […] More »

Professional book reviewing is dead in this country. The CBC could revive it. If Clive Owen were a Canadian author, maybe the CBC would finally review books. Katrina Onstad, a film columnist for CBC.ca, begins a recent review: “The International opens with a long, extended close-up of Clive Owen’s face, following which I jotted in […] More »

Québécois artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy celebrate 10 years of artistic shock and awe Socially Acceptable Acts of Terrorism: that last word seems to just hang in the air. These days, not many organizations would choose to use the “T” word. But when Montreal’s public art duo ATSA (the group’s French acronym) first hit […] More »

It was a great moment for the Conservatives’ law and order agenda, and a terrible one for justice. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan recently announced new anti-terrorism legislation that would allow Canadian victims of terrorist attacks on both domestic and foreign soil to sue individual terrorists, terrorist organizations, or even countries accused of supporting […] More »

For at-risk youths, Pathways to Education may be a one-way ticket out of poverty. The program can be described as an “early intervention” initiative: it identifies demographically disadvantaged students and, from grade 9 onwards, guides them towards high school completion and post-secondary education through a combination of tutoring, mentoring, and scholarships. Unlike tuition freezes or […] More »

Publishers, libraries co-operating to get locally published e-books into the public’s hands If the Association of Book Publishers of B.C. gets its way, the province’s libraries will be making a major acquisition this summer without gaining any weight. The association’s Best of B.C. Books Online project plans to purchase electronic rights to a collection of […] More »

Has a transsexual ruined your life lately? Because if you believe what you see on TV, trans people are lurking everywhere, just waiting to pounce on unassuming heterosexuals. Trans characters on TV are like those early depictions of gay men, before they started cropping up as every woman’s best-friend-slash-fashion-adviser. It’s depressing to argue that the […] More »

The English language reached 1 million words yesterday. It’s a bit of a humbling realization if you’re intent on developing your vocabulary. It means, if you want to know every English word, you will need to learn a word an hour for the next 114 years, which means you’re probably already too late. That’s also […] More »