Adam Getty, Al Moritz, Shane Neilson

Over the last few weeks a few books have made their way across the transom here at chez Biblioasis. Each is by a writer with press associations: two by poets we published as part of our chapbook series, and the third by a poet we expect to publish a first full trade collection by in the next couple of seasons.

The first is a new collection by Shane Neilson titled Exterminate My Heart. Another beautiful, beautiful Frog Hollow Press Production, wonderfully illustrated with wood engravings by George Walker. It's a lovingly produced volume of love poems to Neilson's wife, daughter and mother. But like all else by Neilson, this collection of love poems is not typical, neither sweet or saccharine. They are tensely dark and open and howling and beautiful and loving and generous and read true. Very powerful. What I have is number 15 of 25 cased copies, so there are not many left, though there's a trade edition I've not yet seen to boot. If you would like to take a further gander, please go here:

www.froghollowpress.com/catalogue.html#exterminate

The next two books arrived late this past week, and I haven't had enough time to do more than flip through them. But Adam Getty's 2nd trade collection, Repose, and A. F. Moritz's The Sentinel, both contain poems we published in chapbook form a couple of years ago. Adam is one of my favourite poets and procrastinators, and I look very much forward to getting into this collection. (And in some future issue of CNQ, I'll be publishing his essay Poetry in the Slaughterhouse: I've only had the chance to read half of it, and the threat of Windsor thugs with aluminum bats has not yet frightened the rest of it out of him, but what I've seen is proof enough to know Getty can write well about anything, in any form, whenever he puts his mind to it.) I've read many of the poems already in the Moritz collection -- he is also a Frog Hollow alumnus -- but look forward to revisiting them soon here, alongside other work.

Alas, neither of these two books are for keeps: I'll need to send them off packing to a reviewer for CNQ. But I'll soon be buying both, and along with Neilson's above, would recommend that those poetry lovers out there add them to their lists as well.