Four Canadian Poets At The Top Of Their Game
Four dynamic poetic voices— each with distinct perspectives on spiritual enlightenment, trauma, pastoral beauty and the joys of the physical body— were highlighted at McClelland & Stewart’s 2025 spring poetry night held earlier this month.
Sponsored by the publisher and Another Story Bookshop, the event drew an overflow crowd to College Street’s Society Club, where the poetry of Aisha Sasha John, Chris Bailey, Rebecca Salazar, and Tolu Oloruntoba (above) kept the crowd engrossed. Oloruntoba, A Nigerian Canadian physician and poet who won the 2021 Governor General’s Award for English language poetry for his debut collection “The Junta of Happenstance,” as well as the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize, presented his new work entitled “Unravel.”
Like his previous works, much of Unravel reflects the author’s intellect and passion, exploring mythical, religious, and historical symbolism. However, this new volume contains more humour and whimsy, as in the playful “Pygmalion”– a lament that employs repetitive structure to explore the constraints and delusions inherent in romantic and platonic love.
“I love you
but I do not know you.
I love you
because I do not know you.
I love you
because I made you.
If I knew you
I would not know you.
If I knew you
I might not love you
or I might shatter.”
Compared to his previous work, Oloruntoba’s new book favours the personal and direct more than the cerebral, as in “Still Life with Bananas” - a poem that tries to make sense of love among close relatives. He writes of, “You, who are three fifths of me, by DNA” . . . “reluctant immigrant” and loved one who inflicts “crimes of opportunity” both as self harm and directed attack.
Salazar’s book, “antibody” (a follow-up to the author’s Governor General’s Literary Award shortlisted sulphurtongue) relates the impact of sexual abuse using soul-crushing imagery to express the torment of a skewered heart, as in the elegantly composed, “FIVE OF RINGS.”
“we are protectors binding
harms we cannot name
with any ligament we find.
madre’s witch finger: cut-
taut tendon holds the crook,
a spring wound up with history.
my time travel: brain coiled
in trauma loops, repeating
cycles in the dark to reach
before the (w)elder’s death,
return his breath, invert our loss.”
In some poems, Salazar employs concrete poetry and manipulates the text as imagery on the page, in some instances redacting words for effect. While this works to break up what can at times seem to be relentless, raw renderings about the damage from abuse, the technique can also come across as inadequate and gimmicky when placed in the context of the pain expressed.
Bailey’s work from his book, “FORECAST: PRETTY BLEAK” - a bucolic and, at times, ironic collection, has a pointed mission reflecting the author’s love of his life in rural PEI amid his fears for the impact of climate change.
Dancer, poet and author, John relates her love of music and rhythm in the elements throughout her latest book “total.”
Robin Harvey (robinharvey@live.com) worked on staff for The Toronto Star for more than 20 years. There she wrote book and theatre reviews. She was a reporter, editor and columnist as well as a News Editor, Assistant City Editor and Public Editor. As Deputy Sunday Editor she was supervisor of the books page. For a time, she ran The Sunday Star short story contest. She's been published in Sun Media, The Toronto Sunday Sun, the Southam news chain and the National Post. Ms. Harvey studied journalism at Metropolitan University, Fine Arts at York University, and is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers.