Detours: An anthology of Poets from Windsor & Essex County

by Susan Holbrook (Editor), Dawn Marie Kresan (Editor)

Detours: An Anthology of Poets from Windsor & Essex County showcas- es the eclecticism that characterizes this region: the traditional and the experimental, the academy and the community, the historical and the emergent, the internationally renowned and the promising apprentice. It excavates our literary heritage, paying tribute to Marty Gervais, Joyce Carol Oates, and Bronwen Wallace, while highlight- ing new work by emerging poets such as Alex Gayowsky, Kate Har- greaves, and Robert Earl Stewart.
Edited by Susan Holbrook and Dawn Marie Kresan. Holbrook teaches North American Literatures and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor, and is the current poetry editor for The Windsor Review. Her poetry books include the Trillium-nominated Joy Is So Exhausting (2009), the chapbook Good Egg Bad Seed (2004), and misled (1999), which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award. Kresan lives in Kingsville, where she works as a freelance graphic designer and the publisher of Palimpsest Press. Her poetry books include Muse (2013) and a limited edition chapbook Framed (2009).
Authors include Sal Ala, Di Brandt, Louis Cabri, Dani Couture, Tom Dilworth, John Ditsky, Len Gasparini, Alex Gayowsky, Marty Gervais, Phil Hall, Kate Hargreaves, Nasser Hussain, Melanie Janisse, Lenore Langs, Dorothy Mahoney, Nicole Markotic, Eugene McNamara, Gustave Morin, Mary Ann Mulhern, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Pender, Jenny Sampirisi, Emily Schultz, Venessa Shields, Laurie Smith, Peter Stevens, Robert Earl Stewart, Bronwen Wallace, and Darryl Whetter.

Genres: Poetry, Canadian Literature

152 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2013

About the author

Born in 1967, Susan Holbrook is a Canadian poet and professor. Holbrook received her B.A.from the University of Victoria, and her M.A.from the University of Calgary. She teaches North American literatures and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor, in Ontario.

Susan Holbrook’s teaching, research and writing is propelled by her interests in contemporary poetry and poetics, Canadian literature, American Modernism, gender studies, and creative writing. She is poetry editor for Coach House press. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript (Throaty Wipes, forthcoming in 2016), and an edition of Daphne Marlatt’s collected poetry.

Reviews

[Mark Nenadov]

I picked this up at the reading which featured this anthology and Whisky Sour City. An collection of poems by poets from Windsor and Essex County, it includes a lot of prominent authors like Len Gasparini, Marty Gervais, Eugene McNamara, and Joyce Carol Oates.

This anthology differs from the recent and similarly themed Whisky Sour City anthology in that it is longer, most of these poems are reprints, and it features some photography. I would also say that the collection of authors is less diverse (ie. a higher percentage of them seem to have long publication lists and literature-related degrees--That said, a fair amount of authors are featured in both anthologies).

Not every poem in here was my cup of tea, but there were a lot of really good ones. One thing I really liked about this volume were the amount of poems about nature and wildlife. I was excited to see a poem about LaSalle woodlot, which is one of my previous stomping grounds. I also enjoyed seeing a poems about hawk migration, orioles, coyotes, etc.

I felt that, taking into account both the performances at the reading and the written word, Robert Stewart's "He Disavows His Original Coyote Population Estimate" was perhaps the most striking poem in this collection.

[Brooke Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading it is like going on a scenic drive with storytellers in tow to narrate the journey.