Best Canadian Poetry 2021

This is a book, writes guest editor Souvankham Thammavongsa, about what I saw and read and loved, and want you to see and read and love. Selected from work published by Canadian poets in magazines and journals in 2020, Best Canadian Poetry 2021 gathers the poems Thammavongsa loved most over a year’s worth of reading, and draws together voices that got in and out quickly, that said unusual things, that were clear, spare, and plain, that made [her] laugh out loud … the voices that barely ever survive to make it onto the page. From new work by Canadian icons to thrilling emerging talents, this year’s anthology offers fifty poems for you to fall in love with as well.

Featuring:

Margaret Atwood

Ken Babstock

Manahil Bandukwala

Courtney Bates-Hardy

Roxanna Bennett

Ronna Bloom

Louise Carson

Kate Cayley

Kitty Cheung

Dani Couture

Kayla Czaga

Sari Dale

Unnati Desai

Tina Do

Andrew DuBois

Paola Ferrante

Beth Goobie

Nina Philomena Honorat

Liz Howard

Maureen Hynes

George K Ilsley

Eve Joseph

Ian Keteku

Judith Krause

M Travis Lane

Mary Dean Lee

Canisia Lubrin

Randy Lundy

David Ly

Yohani Mendis

Pamela Mosher

Susan Musgrave

Tea Mutonji

Barbara Nickel

Ottavia Paluch

Kirsten Pendreigh

Emily Pohl-Weary

David Romanda

Matthew Rooney

Zoe Imani Sharpe

Sue Sinclair

John Steffler

Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang

Arielle Twist

David Ezra Wang

Phoebe Wang

Hayden Ward

Elana Wolff

Eugenia Zuroski

Jan Zwicky