by Chris Banks
I must say 2025 was an outstanding year for Canadian poetry! I’m so glad I decided to start this website as it has made me read much, much more Canadian poetry, and it is always nice to hear from poets and readers of the website who are enjoying the content. I think it needs to be said that I review the books I find the most intriguing and engaging to me personally, and obviously, I cannot and do not read everything as I am a full-time professional teacher, but at the end of 2025, these are the Canadian poetry books that impacted me the most, and so I offer up the following list of recommendations:
- Tolu Oloruntuba Unravel (M&S)
- Karen Solie Wellwater (Anansi)
- Robyn Sarah We’re Somewhere Else Now (Biblioasis)
- Chris Hutchinson Lost Signal (Palimpsest Press2025 )
- Evelyn Lau Parade of Storms (Anvil Press)
- Paul Vermeersch NMLCT (ECW press)
- Ronna Bloom In A Riptide (Brick Books)
- D.A. Lockhart Commonwealth (Kegedonce Press)
- Nick Thran Existing Music (Nightwood Editions)
- stephanie roberts Unmet (Biblioasis)
Chris Banks is an award-winning, Pushcart-nominated Canadian poet and author of seven collections of poems, most recently Alternator with Nightwood Editions (Fall 2023). His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors’ Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. His poetry has appeared in The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review, The Walrus, American Poetry Journal, The Glacier, Best American Poetry (blog), Prism International, among other publications. Chris was an associate editor with The New Quarterly, and is Editor in Chief of The Woodlot – A Canadian Poetry Reviews & Essays website. He lives with dual disorders–chronic major depression and generalized anxiety disorder– and writes in Kitchener, Ontario.
The Woodlot 