Arc Poetry Magazine

05/23/2025

"Even though love can send us spiraling into the heavens, it is also what ultimately keeps us down to earth." David Waltner-Toews’s The Gravity of Love shows that the power of the natural world has the same essence as a powerful romance, of what we call love. Reviewer Mark Frutkin reminds us in these poems the depth and complexity of nature reflects the depth and heart of our being. Read the full review here: https://buff.ly/ymLIchT

05/15/2025

"First there was fear. Fear of being shut in, a continent of shut-ins, shut up. // Fear without breath." In The King of Terrors, Jim Johnstone confronts his mortality with honesty and tenderness. Reviewer Carl Watts calls it the same kind of thoughtfully minimalist, sometimes scientifically informed poetry we expect from Johnstone, but sharpened by the urgency of an uncertain future and illness. Read the full review here: https://buff.ly/OmmZGsi

05/14/2025

Our call for submissions to our "New Material Ecopoetics" issue is closing tomorrow, but if we hit our limit of submissions this call may close early. Check out the guidelines, and if you have some great, boundary-pushing poems exploring ecopoetics, send them our way!

Call for Submissions: The New Material Ecopoetics! What does it mean to be a poet engaged with the physical material of the world around us? How does poetic form change in the encounter with other beings? How do we write collaboratively with—rather than about—nonhuman beings and ecologies? For the Fall 2025 issue, Arc is seeking previously unpublished experimental eco-poetry that engages with the possibilities of organic form. We welcome experiments with lyric, visual poetics, material poetries, and sound poetries. Send us your big swings by May 15! Check out our submission guidelines at https://buff.ly/3EUtM6m

05/12/2025

Don't forget to read our Poem of the Year shortlist and vote on your favourite to be the Readers' Choice Award winner before May 15! https://arcpoetry.ca/editorials/2025-poem-of-the-year-shortlist/

Arc’s Poem of the Year 2025 Readers’ Choice Award is open for voting! Which shortlisted poem is your favourite? Read the standout finalist poems and cast your vote today! https://buff.ly/3DLvn2D

05/09/2025

"To use language is to conjure worlds, to envision the real in the ethereal." Liz Worth’s Inside Every Dream, a Raging Sea is a poetic incantation where the veil between the worlds of dreams, spirits and magic wears thin. Read the full review by Adebe DeRango-Adem here: https://buff.ly/JT70O1u

04/30/2025

Arc’s Poem of the Year 2025 Readers’ Choice Award is open for voting! Which shortlisted poem is your favourite? Read the standout finalist poems and cast your vote today! https://buff.ly/3DLvn2D

04/29/2025

Now available on our website is an interview with Amber Dawn, author of the new poetry collection Buzzkill Clamshell, out with Arsenal Pulp Press. This interview, conducted by Arc's Newsletter Editor Margo LaPierre, first appeared in our March 2025 newsletter, but it was so good we couldn't not cross post it to our website for all to read! Check it out here: https://buff.ly/d7wdUmN

04/25/2025

“Does love require rationalizations, excuses, explanations, or is it the expression of moments, fragmented experiences, disruptions?” In you, Chantal Neveu treats love not as a story, but as an architectural structure, a poetic experiment holding intimate feelings. Read full review by Amanda Earl here: https://buff.ly/3TckUH3

04/22/2025

There is just over a week left in National Poetry Month, and that means time is running out to help Arc run our Poet-in-Residence program. Even $15 helps fund mentorship opportunities that shape the next generation of poets. Don’t wait, donate today and help us to keep the tradition alive! Follow the link to give now https://buff.ly/iCp2bpM

Help Poetry Bloom! This National Poetry Month support emerging poets by donating to Arc’s Poet-in-Residence program. Just $15 (but no more than $100—we forbid it!) helps fund mentorship opportunities that shape the next generation of poets. Don’t wait, donate today and help us to keep the tradition alive! Follow the link to give now https://buff.ly/iCp2bpM

04/17/2025

In Theophylline, Erín Moure doesn't just translate, but inhabits a poetic migration through a Derridean lens. Moure explores what it means to be a "foreigner" in both time and language, channeling voices of modernist poets while crafting her own. “Something else” is what poetry does best. Read the full review here: https://buff.ly/9WN2qHI

04/11/2025

"Now I occupy the design." Lisa Robertson's Boat is a meditation on her creative process, memory and the evolving self as a poem in motion. Reviewer Margaryta Golovchenko sees the collection as a poetic stage, a linguistic landscape that is never static, and always unfolding. Read full review here: https://buff.ly/hfRJihc

04/04/2025

What better way to start National Poetry Month than to read Lana Crossman's November 2024 Award of Awesomeness winning poem. Get in the car to take a "Late Drive Toward Innisfil" in Lana's beautiful, image-rich poem. And congratulations to honourable mentions Gary Barwin and Andrew French!