A ‘best of’ list of 2025 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of the seemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive, imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titles I’ve managed to review throughout the past year. This is my fifteenth annual list [see also: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011] since dusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets write up their own versions of same, and I thank her both for the ongoing opportunity, and her original prompt. See the full thing over here.

My list this year includes works by: Joel Katelnikoff, Matthew Gwathmey, Michael Boughn, DM Bradford, Eva H.D., Em Dial, Tea Gerbeza, Oana Avasilichioaei, Monroe Lawrence, Sean Howard, Farah Ghafoor, Terese Mason Pierre, J.R. Carpenter, Anna Veprinska, Jake Byrne, Tolu Oloruntoba, Zane Koss, Adam Haiun, Mahaila Smith, Jessica Bebenek, Michael Chang, Jessica Popeski, Karen Solie, Jessi MacEachern, Kyo Lee, Cecily Nicholson, Junie Désil, Hajer Mirwali, Amy LeBlanc, Jeff Derksen, Natalie Lim, Jumoke Verissimo, Paul Vermeersch, Gillian Sze, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Steffi Tad-y, Isabella Wang, Guy Birchard, MA│DE, Qurat Dar, Anna Swanson, Jane Shi, Manahil Bandukwala, Emily Austin, Sabyasachi (Sachi) Nag, Stephanie Bolster, Christina Shah, Natalie Rice, Ronna Bloom, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Fenn Stewart, Rahat Kurd, Scott Jackshaw, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Drew McEwan, ryan fitzpatrick and Eric Schmaltz.