One could argue that to get a general overview of what Canadian writing has been up to, even over such a relatively brief period of the past decade or so, one should explore not any single title, but a small mound of incredibly vibrant anthologies, including Michael Barnholden and Andrew Klobucar’s Writing Class: The Kootenay School of Writing Anthology (New Star Books, 1999), Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch’s Post Prairie: an anthology of new poetry (Talonbooks, 2005), Nate Dorward’s ANTIPHONES: Essays on Women’s Experimental Poetries in Canada (The Gig, 2008) and Heather Milne and Kate Eichhorn’s Prismatic Poetics: Innovative Canadian Women’s Poetry and Poetics (Coach House Books,2009), all of which I would more than recommend.

A few months ago, I contacted a small group of Canadian poets for the sake of a “Canadian feature,” attempting to solicit a diverse range of poets whom I think are each producing uniquely powerful and original writing, and requesting they each write out a statement of poetics. The responses came from far and wide, and show just how difficult it could ever be to attempt to encompass any kind of representation in such a small space. This selection of nine poets is but a sampling of a much larger, rich and diverse array of writing currently being produced by those either from, in or around the north side of our shared border.