Celebrate the launch of three anticipated books of poetry by Alberta authors ryan fitzpatrick. Conor Kerr, and Jason Purcell!
Come hear these poets read from their very different books, from a riotous poetic novel about Métis life featuring characters like Buddy, Baby Momma, Fancy University Boy, and Aunty Prof, to a playful demolition of country music’s odes to our latter days, to a thoughtful reflection on long-term illness and the ecology of Edmonton’s river valley.
"No Depression in Heaven" asks how we respond to bad times.
Written during country music’s most recent ascent in popularity, this poetry "LP" consists of ten “tracks” that each take up a rhythm, only to bend it out of shape. Dwelling on whether it is best to look backward to a seemingly better past, longing for a way to make things great again, or to stare into the abyss of the future, gambling that entry into heaven will finally provide release from a weary life, "No Depression in Heaven" rejects both of these dangerous horizons. It chooses instead to remain resolutely in present uncertainty, addressing our latter-day anxiety through poetic improvisation, treating the text as a space of play and experimentation. Drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, both musical and poetic – and taking its title from a famous Carter Family song – "No Depression in Heaven" asks what it means to hold onto something toxic because of the comforts it affords, to daydream about days long past rather than gripping the reins of the present. This is a book that pulls on its boots, tilts its hat, and brushes the dust off its Nudie suit before tipping language out of key.
An irreverent and playful novella of Metis voices that reflects the complexities of contemporary prairie life.
Conor Kerr's 2024 novel "Prairie Edge" was a finalist for both the Giller Prize and the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust of Canada Fiction Prize. His latest book, "Beaver Hills Forever," takes a riotous, uncompromising look at the intertwined lives of four characters, each an abstract expression of the few paths available to Metis people on the Prairies. In alternating poetic verses, Buddy, Baby Momma, Fancy University Boy, and Aunty Prof share their inner dreams, hardships, delusions of grandeur, and existential plights. While the messy day-to-day is created by their own doing, the lives of these four individuals are doubly compromised by Canada's colonial education system and resource extraction industries.A beguiling and genre-bending work, "Beaver Hills Forever" offers a moving, necessary exploration of education, labour, and the dynamic, ever-changing bonds that bring us back to each other. Here is a diverse, funny, pitch-perfect chorus of voices that rings loud and true over the wide prairie landscape.
A poetic meditation on what it means to live a medicated life, looking toward sites of nature where life and death exist side by side
"Crohnic" is a brilliant and moving collection of poems that asks, what is the landscape of a medicated life? From their convalescence in a room that overlooks the North Saskatchewan River, author Jason Purcell thinks ecologically with medical records, prescriptions, and dosages, staying attuned to place and to what it might mean to live a life relying on something - in this case, an interminable course of medication - that hurts you in some ways to help you in others. How does the terrain of life change? Picking up the threads of sickness first plucked in "Swollening," "Crohnic" charts two years of Purcell's treatment for Crohn's disease, journeying from hospital rooms to bogs and muskeg, places where life and death intermingle and create the conditions for one another's flourishing. This is a world populated by coyotes, ermines, steroids, pine, infusion drips, moss, pills, and ice. These other-than-human beings come together in "Crohnic," coalescing into relations that together form a personal narrative of the management of chronic illness.
ryan fitzpatrick (he/they) is the author of five books of poetry, including the recent "No Depression in Heaven" (Talonbooks, 2025) and "Sunny Ways" (Invisible, 2023). A recent transplant back to Calgary, they are a former editor of filling Station magazine and helped start the Flywheel Reading Series. They were the 2024–2025 Writer-in-Residence in the University of Alberta’s Department of English and Film Studies.
Conor Kerr (he/him) is a national award-winning (and losing) Metis/Ukrainian writer and bird hunter living in amiskwaciwaskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta). His previous books are the ReLit Award-winning novel Avenue of Champions (Nightwood Editions) and the Giller Prize-nominated novel "Prairie Edge" (Strange Light), as well as the poetry collections "An Explosion of Feathers" (Bookland Press) and the Governor General-shortlisted Old Gods (Nightwood Editions).
Jason Purcell (they/them) is a writer and musician from amiskwaciwaskahikan, Treaty 6 (Edmonton, Alberta). They are the author of the poetry collections "Swollening" (Arsenal Pulp Press) and "A Place More Hospitable" (Anstruther Press). They are a PhD student in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta.
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