"Long and sympathetic watching, radio tracking, chemical analysis are all part of this naturalist's ingenious and peaceable arsenal of inquiry into the lives of porcupines."--Scientific American

Full of wit and wordplay, P.C. Vandall’s The Blue Moth of Morning reveals the anarchy that often reigns behind an outward illusion of female self-control. These poems remind us that love is not blushing brides, rosy-red cheeks and ruby lips; that idols can tire of being hailed like cabs, evoked in the night and preyed upon by sinners; that pants can sing a woman’s shame; and that even salmon know when it’s a good time to run. By turns appreciative and deprecatory of the sundry facets of life, Vandall writes as someone who recognizes that marriage can be a frying pan you swing at your spouse—and that you can miss the mark but still make a point.

Eyan, homeless and all but invisible, drifts through the sundrenched streets, parks and boardwalks of Los Angeles, sometimes avoiding, sometimes seeking the shadows. A chance encounter with his childhood friend, Marc, leads Eyan to meet ‘the professor’, an erudite and tragic figure who takes Eyan under his wing, reading to him from Milton’s Paradise Lost in the lustrated light of the city at night. But these friendships also drag Eyan into the City of Angels’ Skid Row, the largest homeless community in North America. There, the sinister Paul and his gang of black-garbed ‘eyeless boys’ have established a reign of daily terror, committing murder after murder which the police are incapable of stopping. As tensions on the streets increase, the professor continues to read from Milton’s great epic, and Eyan begins to wonder: if even the angels can find themselves at war, what hope, and what kind of home, exists for him? Fair offers a lyrical and reflective glimpse into a vulnerable young man’s struggle to survive in an indifferent, violent world.

The exacting art of wood engraving is defined by presence and absence, shadow and light, black and white. An arduous yet rewarding art form, it requires an artistic eye and a dedication to technique in order to imbue each image with its own visual narrative. Wood engraver Wesley W. Bates, the artist behind the acclaimed book The Point of the Graver, demonstrates the power and precision of the form in his new collection Out of the Dark. Bates brings to bear decades of experience, deftly wielding his graver to coax vibrant and lifelike images from solid blocks of endgrain wood. In so doing, he frees each likeness not only from the blocks that hold them captive but also from the reaches of his prodigious imagination. With a wide variety of engravings in Bates’s unmistakable style, and accompanying texts to bring the reader into the artist’s studio, Out of the Dark is a treat for all who appreciate the traditional form.

There’s a rhythm inside things ... It is the spring of 1987 and the blackflies are thick in the air. Twenty-year-old Rory Fleck—runner, bassist, ex-boyfriend, baby of the family—joins a tree-planting brigade in Northern Ontario, camping out in a pup tent and whiling away the evenings writing letters to his dead brother. Haunted by dreams and plagued by gruesome visions from the past, Rory goes in search of the rhythm—in planting and in life—that leads to the mindless trance tree planters call ‘Freak Zero’. He takes comfort in a meaningful mix-tape titled VOYAGER 1 (ten songs, one for each full year his older brother, Mike, has been gone) and he develops a camaraderie with his fellows in the camp: timid, meticulous planter Eddie; gruff, Shakespeare-spouting camp cook Jerry; and kind, vibrant, tempting Betina. But there are others whose motives are less than friendly. Crew boss Ty’s rampant jealousy threatens Rory and Betina’s budding relationship, and the mysterious Mr W’s calm detachment conceals a startling connection to Rory’s past. When his time as a tree planter comes to an abrupt and painful end, Rory must choose whether to keep running, or find out what it means to stop and face the music. Midland is a gripping story of trauma, family ghosts and the healing forces of friendship and music.