OUR BOOKS
Permanent Carnival Time is the best book of poetry I’ve read over the last few years. I mean it. It’s really excellent.
By Ryan Fitzpatrick
The Capilano Review, April 17, 2023
When TCR floated the idea that I write a review that would come out alongside their “Bad Feelings” issue, I told them I wasn’t writing reviews, ironically because of some bad feelings I was having. After some arm-twisting, I said I would only write a review of something that I cared about. I needed an antidote to all the bad feelings I was feeling about reviewing. So, I decided to review Winnipeg poet Colin Smith’s recent book Permanent Carnival Time, which is the best book of poetry I’ve read over the last few years. I mean it. It’s really excellent. But it’s also appropriate for TCR right now because Permanent Carnival Time, despite its fun time of a title, is obsessed with bad feelings. Bad feelings saturate this book, but we’ll get to that. [Read the review.]