This edition of Nelligan's poems, with a critical introduction by the editor and translator, is the first complete English translation of Nelligan's poetry authorized by the Emile Nelligan Foundation. With this book the editor hopes to persuade the reader that Emile Nelligan, "the most brilliant and original of the poets of the Ecole Litteraire of Montreal," was also the finest Canadian poet of the nineteenth century. In this view he is seconded by the American critic Edmund Wilson, who wrote: "The accepted idea [in Canada]. . . is that the poetry of English Canada is excellent and better than their fiction, and it irritates them to be told that the best Canadian poet was French."

In 1954, Fred Cogswell and a group of students and faculty associated with The Fiddlehead magazine founded Fiddlehead Poetry Books ?to give the public a chance to read the work of new Canadian poets.? The first volume was Cogswell's own first collection, The Stunted Strong, a sonnet sequence that sets vivid sketches of country people confined by frustration, obsession, and small victories against the illimitable dreams and thwarting limitations of the human condition. This second edition of The Stunted Strong is published to commemorate the life that Fred Cogswell so generously devoted to poetry and its makers. Between 1958, when he became the publisher of Fiddlehead Poetry Books, and 1981, when he retired, he published more than three hundred collections. He launched the careers of Frances Itani, Roo Borson, Joy Kogawa, Marilyn Bowering, Don Gutteridge, and Alden Nowlan, and he published early books by Al Purdy, Norman Levine, Dorothy Livesay, and David Solway. In 1982, Peter Thomas became the new publisher, and, deciding to publish prose as well as poetry, he changed the imprint to Goose Lane Editions.

St. Thomas University has nurtured exemplary people for a century -- from its first alighting in Newcastle to its current perch on a Fredericton hilltop. Here, in celebration of St. Thomas's 100th anniversary, is the first-ever collection of fiction, poetry, and prose by the university's most celebrated writers, including David Adams Richards, Sheldon Currie, Leo Ferrari, Sheree Fitch, and Kathy Mac. Philip Lee's thrumming account of a public auction kicks off the collection. Next up: Sheree Fitch's poem, "Cop," which wends through undercover prostitution and a child's abduction. Hard on its heels: Sheldon Currie's pitch-perfect story from a Nova Scotia coal-mining town. Once you begin, you're sure to read until the entire, delectable volume is consumed.

"Conversations," a collection of poetry that won the 1999 Governor General's Award (French Language), is a sequence of 999 numbered fragments that record the essence of verbal interactions between two people. Over a period of a year, Hermenegilde Chiasson captured snatches of conversations overheard, conversations he had with other people, even reported conversations. Then he distilled what was said and his observations into a series of single sentences, each attributed to a strangely impersonal He or She. Chiasson has likened his concept to the visual experience of driving: a succession of flashes zooming by, the connections only intuited. The blank spot for entry number 1000 underlines a Zen-like philosophy that suggests that nothing is ever fully completed. In subject matter and technique, "Conversations" fuses tradition and modernity. Chiasson continues his exploration of the often uncomfortable zone where the mechanical or artificial meets human emotion and spirit. The format participates in the strong and lively Acadian oral tradition, yet the sentences themselves are polished literary jewels, almost epigrammatic in their compactness.

"Conversations" is at the same time as public as a news broadcast and as private as a lover's unspoken thoughts. With ten personal collections of poetry, Hermenegilde Chiasson's body of work is among the most prolific in Acadian poetry. "Mourir a Scoudouc" was published in 1974 to critical acclaim in Acadie and Quebec. In 1976, he made a radical departure in style with his collection of anti-poetry "Rapport sur l'etat de mes illusions." Busy with filmmaking, the visual arts, and playwrighting, it was a decade before Chiasson published "Propheties" in 1986. The 1990s were a prolific time for Chiasson's poetry. His 1991 collections "Vous" and "Existences," broke new ground in the field of experimental poetry and Vous was nominated for a Governor General's Award. "Vermeer" and "Miniatures" continued Chiasson's quest to blend the visual with the oral in a unique poetic style. In 1996, Chiasson produced "Climats." It was hailed as one of modern Acadie's strongest poetic works and was the first of his books to be translated into English. "Climates" brought Chiasson his second Governor General's Award nomination. In 1999, Chiasson won the Governor General's Award for his landmark poetic work "Conversations," now available in English from Goose Lane Editions.

"Climates" is suffused with the single-minded desire to fully inhabit, and be inhabited by, a place: Acadie. The political push-and-pull of being Acadian is a constant, even when the mutability of personal life is in the foreground. The four sections of "Climates" each correspond to a season, and each is marked by unity of tone, atmosphere, and form.