“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


Šari 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


Téa 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