Best Poetry Books I Read in 2017 (or Why Ottawa's Poetry Reading Scene Sings)

I haven't finished reading all of my poetry books that I started in 2017, but I know beautiful and painful work when I absorb it. Here are some of the titles that made me pay attention. Perhaps you should too, ever-faithful reader.

Richard Harrison

On Not Losing My Father’s Ashes in the Flood 

Buckrider Books/Wolsak and Wynn

Harrision writes heartfelt and nuanced prose poetry pieces about his relationship with his father. Difficut subject matter, this, the tangled complexity of relating to his own son as well as his ailing father, but Harrison pulls it off with aplomb. The poet also works in some fine allusions to comic-book icons such as Superman and Captain America, and how fans of the characters relate to these icons, even across a generational divide. As a parent, I find Harrison's works irresistibly maudlin and profound. His work prompts me to reflect on my rapport with my child and the sometimes difficult relationship I hold with my own father. Harrison may be graceful as a wordsmith, but his truth hits hard and stays with you.
Proof that I bet on a wining horse? The book won the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.

Why Ottawa's Poetry Reading Scene Sings
I also had the pleasure of hearing Harrison read from On Not Losing My Father’s Ashes in the Flood, along with D. S. Stymeist,  at the Oct25, 2016 Tree Reading Series. Harrison's selections, particularly about his father-son relationships in early life and end of life, nearly moved me to tears several times.

Tarah-Michelle Ziniuk

Whatever, Iceberg 

Mansfield Press

Painfully personal and confessional, Ziniuk leads readers through a gallery of heartbreak, love, loss and angst. It is not always easy reading. This is because Ziniuk puts the audience in the position of the jilted, the rejected and the cast off, widening the perception of the reader. Ziniuk's is a pained free-verse  voice, sending missives from the wreckage of failed relationships.

Michael V. Smith

Bad Ideas 

Nightwood Editions

Smith too is confessional, writing about the crucible he has gone through, from cruising for sex in public parks to sex addiction. But he also writes bout whimsy, a longing for a lost innocence and lays bares some of the narrator's mortifying moments. One can't help but empathize or come away with insight about the journey we're all on. Funny, irasciable and intelligent, Mike once again proves he can swing poetry and prose.
Back in June 6, 2017, I did a more expansive and intensely personal review of both Bad Ideas, as well as Smith's My Body is Yours: A Memoir. You can find it here.

Why Ottawa's Poetry Reading Scene Sings
Last year, on May24 20017, I was lucky enough to hear Ziniuk and Smith read along with Ben Ladouceur (Arc: Canada's Poetry Magazine's Prose Editor), Marc McCann and Pierre-Luc Landry at Venus Envy. This comprised the Ottawa leg of their Dirty Spring Book Tour. Smith played a witty and funny master of ceremonies, charming the room.