Resisting Canada: An Anthology of Poetry
Edited by Nyla Matuk
‘An invaluable and provocative compilation of oppositional poems’
The Literary Review of Canada
Resisting Canada gathers together poets for a conversation bigger than poetic trends. The book's organizing principle is Canada--the Canada that established residential schools; the Canada grappling with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; the Canada that has been visible in its welcome of Syrian refugees, yet the not-always-tolerant place where the children of those refugees will grow up; the Canada eager to re-establish its global leadership on the environment while struggling to acknowledge Indigenous sovereignty on resource-rich land and enabling further colonization of that land. In the face of global conflicts due to climate change, scarcity, mass migrations, and the rise of xenophobic populisms, Canada still works with a surface understanding of its democratic values--both at their noblest and most deceptive.
The work included in Resisting Canada--by celebrated poets such as Lee Maracle, Jordan Abel, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Louise Bernice Halfe, Michael Prior, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson--addresses, among other things, Indigenous agency, cultural belonging, environmental anxieties, and racial privilege. These poems ask us to judge and resist a statecraft that refuses to acknowledge past and present wrongs.
Think of Resisting Canada as a poetic letter to Canada's politicians and leaders.
REVIEWS
“[R]eimagines the mountains of Canada’s literary landscape.” -Sarah-Jean Krahn, Canadian Literature
“This is not an anthology of cheeky bon mots about the scoundrels in Parliament, nor is it too interested in relitigating the nationalist project of Canadian literature” -Bardia Sinaee Quill and Quire
“One hopes that a collection such as this would be taught in schools, both for the writing and the content.” -rob mcLennan blog
“Matuk’s introduction itself is a manifesto-like call to action, with an expansive overview and contextualization of historical and present injustices” -Marcela Huerta profiles Resisting Canada for the cover story in The Montreal Review of Books Fall 2019.
Resisting Canada one of the ‘best of Montreal books for 2019.’ See more in the Montreal Gazette. 21 Dec. 2019
“An invaluable and provocative compilation of oppositional poems” -Nicholas Bradley in The Literary Review of Canada March 2020
Released September 20, 2019
Resisting Canada LAUNCHED in Toronto November 28th, 2019, 7 pm at Knife | Fork | Book, Artscape Youngplace 180 Shaw Street (Mezzanine) and in Montreal on December 1st, 2019 12:30 pm at 4th Space, J.W. McConnell Building, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West
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