Spencer Folkins, Poems for Burning
"Seven years in the making, Poems for Burning, is a crackling mix... an in-depth exploration of how we experience anxiety... sparking with energy... lighting the reader’s way through the collection." — Catherine Walker, The Miramichi Reader
SPENCER FOLKINS (he/him) is thinking about writing a poem that glows in the dark. He has served as a Board Member for the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, First Reads Editor for The Fiddlehead, and currently serves as a member of the AX: Arts & Culture Centre of Sussex Literary Committee. His writing has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, QWERTY, FreeFall, The League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause series, the Newfoundland Quarterly, Riddle Fence, and elsewhere. Spencer is a member of Egg Poets, a poetry collective—their debut collaborative chapbook “All Things to Keep You Here” was published by Homerow, an imprint of Qwerty. Spencer is a proud member of his local and provincial Ground Search and Rescue Associations, in which he has served as President and Board Member (respectively). He teaches in his hometown and tweets with decreasing frequency @FolkinsSpencer.
Rayya Liebich, Khalas
"Khalas... is a chapbook as beautiful as it is haunting... This book does not go lightly on your feelings, it does not step delicately around your 'niceness'. The writer’s rage and grief can be felt through the pages so deeply it asks the reader to think above what is 'nice' what is 'correct' and asks its reader 'when will it be enough?'" — K.W., The Miramichi Reader
RAYYA LIEBICH (she/her) is a writer and educator of Lebanese and Polish descent. She is the author of the award-winning chapbook Tell Me Everything (Beret Day Press) and full length poetry collection Min Hayati (Inanna Publications). Passionate about writing as a tool for transformation and changing the discourse on grief, she believes in the power of words to change minds and hearts and in the responsibility of poets to be truth tellers and to record poems as a testimony to history.
Ken Spragg, Dialogue Tree: Saplings
In this special co-production with Roots & Soul Promotions, Ken Spragg navigates the inner turmoil of his heart and mind. This small sampling of Spragg's work, written in his own handwriting, shows a series of moral choices and crisis moments. Never one to fence-sit in neutrality, Spragg's poems are a wrestling with control, a search for synthesis, and a farewell to self-destruction.
KEN SPRAGG (until he changes it) is an aspiring bard/paladin of the anarchist utopia in his head, who writes in repentance for an early adulthood wasted unwittingly consumed by cowardice, and in remembrance of his mom, Theresa, whose
2019 deathbed commandment—"try to be kind"—rebooted him.
Cover art by Uzuki Cheverie