“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