Several Nightwood Editions authors featured in 2022/23 Poetry in Transit Program announced by the Association of Book Publishers of BC

• Joseph Dandurand for The East Side of it All.
• Selina Boan for Undoing Hours.
• Isabella Wang for Pebble Swing.
• Ellie Sawatzky for None of This Belongs to Me.

The East Side of it All, written from the perspective of a drug user and single-room occupant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, explores the ongoing process of healing through reconnection with family, the natural world and traditional Indigenous (Kwantlen) storytelling. The East Side of It All is the journey of a broken man who finally accepts his storytelling gift and shares with the world his misery, joy and laughter. 

Undoing Hours considers the various ways we undo, inherit, reclaim and (re)learn. Boan’s poems emphasize sound and breath. They tell stories of meeting family, of experiencing love and heartbreak, and of learning new ways to express and understand the world around her through nêhiyawêwin.

Pebble Swing is about language and family histories. It is the author’s attempt to piece together the resonant aftermath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which stole the life of her paternal grandmother. As an immigrant whose grasp of Mandarin is fading, Wang explores absences in her caesuras and fragmentation—that which is unspoken, but endures. 

None of This Belongs to Me plots a young woman’s coming of age in a time of environmental and socio-economic peril. Superimposing dreamscapes on realities, history on pop culture and everyday sorrows, this collection is a hymn for the broken-hearted, a plea for connection in the information age, and a call to question the ways in which we both nurture and harm one another and our environment.

The Poetry in Transit program is an opportunity to showcase the work of Canadian-published poets residing in BC through a collection of bus cards. the work of Canadian-published poets residing in BC. Poetry in Transit has been running since 1996, making it the longest-running poetry on transit program in Canada. To be eligible for the program, submitted poems must be written by writers who reside in BC and published in book form by a Canadian publisher