The Garbage Poems

by Anna Swanson, April White (Illustrator)

Poems that repurpose the language of beer cans and fast-food wrappers to explore everything from chronic illness to climate crisis to the joy of wild swimming.

Created entirely out of words found on trash collected at local swimming holes, Anna Swanson's garbage poems reclaim hyperbolic corporate marketing-speak for the expression of physical pleasure, queerness, and vulnerability. Written in the years following a head injury, this book traces the connections experienced in the fiercely embodied act of swimming with a chronically ill body. Paired with tender watercolour illustrations of the source garbage by award-winning artist April White, these poems refuse to conform to an illness-and-cure narrative and instead become a vibrant archive of the process of piecing a voice together from fragments, an urgent study of the deeply political nature of joy.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

Published September 29, 2025

About the author

Anna Swanson is a queer writer and librarian. Her first book of poetry, The Nights Also (Tightrope Books, 2010), won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and a Lambda Literary Award. Her newest collection of poetry, The Garbage Poems, will be published by Brick Books in the fall of 2025. Her writing has been widely published in journals and appears in anthologies including Best Canadian Poetry, Impact: Women Writing After Concussion, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry, Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis, and Torah: A Women’s Commentary. She is finishing an MFA at the University of Guelph and is based in St. John’s (on the island of Ktaqmkuk/Newfoundland) where she works as a poetry editor for Riddle Fence Magazine. Her special interests include collective liberation and wild swimming in all seasons.

Reviews

[Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poetry collection was born from quite an unusual concept: the poet gathered trash from local swimming spots they frequented and transformed it into art. These are, quite literally, garbage poems! Through them, we are examining what defines something as garbage, how waste shapes our world, and what it reveals about us. Alongside this, the poet explores the restorative power of swimming and the universal importance of water as both a physical and emotional resource.

Throughout the collection, there is definitely a strong message about re-evaluating our relationship with waste and reducing the use of disposable products. I especially appreciated how the poet interwove many of these poems with illustrations of the trash she had found, as well as definitions of concepts that were both literal and metaphorical, and some reflections on ecological activism and the politics of water accessibility. These elements added layers of context and meaning. However, not all of these thematic poems resonated with me. Some of the pieces centered on waste felt more educational than emotional, while others leaned so far into the abstract that I struggled to grasp their intended message. This lessened the impact of these poems for me and made it hard for me to form a real attachment to the collection.

However, there were some poetic themes that I did really appreciate. My favorite poems were those exploring swimming and chronic illness. These felt more intimate and grounded, revealing a depth and nuance that made them pack more emotional weight. Perhaps because they drew from personal experience, they carried more intensity which the other poems lacked. Overall, while I admired the collection’s concept and I enjoyed the poet's reflections enough to read more of their work, I didn’t feel as strong an emotional connection as I had hoped.

Thank you to the publisher, Brick Books, for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions shared in this review are my own!

[A Dreaming Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Brick Books (Literary Press of Canada) for providing me with an eARC.

I really enjoyed reading this. I was intrigued by the unique concept of writing poetry only from words found on garbage items. I think this sends a strong message about the importance of not using disposable products. I also liked the way the author interspersed the poems with illustrations, definitions, ecological concerns and stories from her own life in a memoir like manner. The author's love for swimming, her recovery and getting back into writing was written about beautifully. I would recommend this to anyone looking for an ecological poetry collection with a unique theme/format and some great art.

[Steph Percival · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gorged on this book, devoured it, poems, illustrations, and all. This collection is lush with poems about garbage, chronic illness, and swimming. Swanson’s exploration of litter as a manufactured concept is thought-provoking. April White’s illustrations are like a cherry on top of a delicious poetry sundae.

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

O skin of my skin. O water. O world.
A lovely collection of embodied, watery work that swims through discussions of chronic illness, queerness, “litter”, settler-colonialism, and more, accompanied by beautiful watercolour paintings of waterlogged trash.

[Degan Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poem by poem, this collection really stood out for me. I’m amazed at the originality of the concepts (using the language of advertising and trash) and the power and urgency of the poems themselves (about swimming, the Jewish ritual bath and the fullness of love). I’m also struck by Swanson’s subtle but striking observations within the pieces—like little bubbles of "aha" rising up constantly.

Each poem is like a hologram. Her pieces remind me of those stickers I got as a kid, the ones which when I angled the image away from the light I saw a new figure. In this case, one figure is the poem itself with its meditations on swimming, queerness, bliss and seeking joy amidst illness. And yet when I turn the piece, I’m reminded each word is formed from the detritus of capitalism, catch-phrases and ads lifted and reorganized from the garbage found at swimming holes.

At times, I felt the vertigo of experiencing both poems/holograms (Holo-poems? Poem-agrams?) at once—a psychic split I rarely catch reading poetry. It’s an eerie effect for an eerie time in history, when we are seeking love and some kind of normalcy as this age in history looms over us—and for me it gives even more depth to the deepwater pool of Anna’s collection.

Degan Davis

[Nicole Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection should be read with Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.” Different genres and contexts, but both are outstanding works of art created in the aftermath of chronic illness. Following a debilitating head injury that cost Swanson her entire way of life, she came up with the idea of creating poetry crafted from the rubbish she found lying around. In a manner after “found poems,” she created a narrative reflecting her hopes amid illness, willing herself back to health. I love this concept. I write found poems, but I take them from other poems, or lines from books. I would never have thought to gather up just stuff, and craft a poem of words collected off cans and bottles and packaging. Swanson is brilliant in this. The creative concept aside, Swanson’s poems are fantastic. I understand the print edition will also have illustrations by April White; I intend to look this up so I can experience the full effect of Swanson’s vision.

[Rachella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Brick Books Publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

As someone who likes to collect and use junk in my journaling, I was highly intrigued by the premise of using only garbage to create poetry.

I liked the photos of some of the garbage used for this project. I also felt that some of the paragraphs and thoughts were relatable.

At other points, however, I just felt lost. The writing, instead of poetry, felt more like random thoughts leading to more random thoughts. A bit disjointed and I couldn't engage with what was being said.

All in all, this was okay. Intriguing premise and I give the author credit for choosing to undertake this project. Just not the best poetry collection I've personally read.

[Anastey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley, Literary Press Group of Canada, Anna Swanson, and April White for sending me this advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was not what I thought it was going to be like. I was expecting a lot more illustrations from the description. There was only the random little painting of a small trash item, like a pop can or chip bag.

As for the poetry, it really didn't feel like poems. It was more like random paragraphs of thoughts for most of the book, with the occasional poem sprinkled in, It was hard to stay engaged with it, and I had to put it down several times. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.

[Rhiley Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Brick Books for the E-ARC! This E-ARC was sent to me in exchange for an honest review.

How rarely we get a collection that is so dutifully devoted to the environment and Mother Earth and coming together with one another. Water was a heavy topic, talked about frequently and in length and also so so eloquently. Although this was entirely created through trash, the way the authors pieced each word together is just-wow. wow. wow.
Magnificent. A must read.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a good collection of poems, and the writing was very beautiful. however, i don’t think i was able to fully connect with this book, and i didn’t feel very drawn to keep picking it up

[Salty Swift · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew you could create a batch of gorgeous poems from garbage found around the beautiful shores of Newfoundland...

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a phenomenal read, a truly stunning book.

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I am staying in a small blue house on a cliff near the Atlantic Ocean to write about an illness that began twenty years ago at the edge of another ocean. I am sitting at the wooden table with the wide ocean view and failing, daily, to write the project that has funded this retreat. Will my concussed brain let me do this? I don’t know. I will be happy if I write anything, I tell my brain. I will take you swimming every day. If this time were not funded, I would not be failing at sitting by the ocean. If this time were not funded, I would not be here. Pick anything, I tell my brain. Please.”

[Jenn Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea behind this book, I had a bad copy so it was very hard to read. I am unsure how the final book will look. I was able to read a few and I just didn't really get it. I love the idea, but I am just not sure if I understood it.

3 stars