February is Black History Month! This month is dedicated to learning, honouring and reflecting on the rich history, contributions, and resilience of Black communities in British Columbia and around the world. In this spirit, below is a list of four poetry books highlighted by Read Local BC that feature Black voices and stories, all published in British Columbia:
allostatic load
by Junie Désil
allostatic load navigates the racialized interplay of chronic wear and tear during tumultuous years marked by global racial tensions, an ongoing pandemic, the commodification of care, and the burden of systemic injustice. Moving between diaristic intimacy and the remove of news reportage, Désil’s second poetry collection invites readers to hold the vulnerability and resilience required to navigate deep healing in a world that does not wish you well, in a world that is inflamed and consequently inflames us, in a world where true restoration and health must co-occur with the planet and with each other
Release date: April 15, 2025
Crowd Source
by Cecily Nicholson
Crowd Source parallels the daily migration of the crows who, aside from fledgling season, fly across metro Vancouver every day at dawn and dusk… Attentive to the great intelligence and perspectives of corvid and non-human communications, the poems in Crowd Source engage historical and strategic examples of how these songbirds gather and disperse. Continuing Nicholson’s engagement with the contemporary climate crisis, social movements, and Black diasporic relations, this is a text for all concerned about practising ecological futurities befitting corvid sensibilities, caw.
Release date: April 1, 2025
How She Read
by Chantal Gibson
How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of Black women, their hearts, minds and bodies, across the Canadian cultural imagination. Drawing from grade-school vocabulary spellers, literature, history, art, media and pop culture, Chantal Gibson’s sassy semiotics highlight the depth and duration of the imperialist ideas embedded in everyday things, from storybooks to coloured pencils, from paintings to postage stamps.
Available now.
The Gospel of Breaking
by Jillian Christmas
In The Gospel of Breaking, Jillian Christmas confirms what followers of her performance and artistic curation have long known: there is magic in her words. Befitting someone who “speaks things into being,” Christmas extracts from family history, queer lineage, and the political landscape of a racialized life to create a rich, softly defiant collection of poems.
Out now.
