The outstanding Canadian poets who have contributed to this volume cover a broad spectrum of emotions: Family, Nature, Distancing, Fear and Quarantine, Isolation, Grief, Resilience and Reverie, Love and Laughter.

George Melnyk is an associate professor of Canadian studies and film studies in the Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary. He is a cultural historian who specializes in Canadian cinema. Among his film publications are One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema (2004) and Great Canadian Film Directors (2007). Most recently he has published The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers (2008) in the Film and Media Studies series at WLU Press.

George Melnyk's profile page

“Poets tend to react to a particular experience or situation in an emotional way,” he says. “What am I seeing here? What am I feeling? How do I understand this in a way that expresses the emotional impact on me? A lot of poetry was being written at the beginning because it was new. Now that we’ve been living this for seven months, I think the approach is different. Instead of something novel, it’s turning into a grind. It’s like being stuck in the trenches for months and months and not getting anywhere. I think the poets, in particular, will reflect that general human condition that is happening across the country.” ---- From Oct 20, 2020 review in The "Calgary Herald"