After much debate, the editorial staff at Gaspereau Press rejected the idea of marking our tenth anniversary with commemorative trinkets, deciding instead to do what we do best–books! This spring we are releasing the first volume of our three-volume Gaspereau Gloriatur: Book of the Blessed Tenth Year. Volume one celebrates the very best poetry issued from our presses. Our editorial team has been sifting back through the catalogue, through full-length trade titles, limited editions, letterpress books, Devil’s Whim chapbooks and broadsides. We’ve also collected some of the poems that have mischievously snuck into books of prose over the years.

Since 1997, Gaspereau Press has published some of Canada’s finest poets, including well-established talents like Tim Bowling, Robert Bringhurst, George Elliott Clarke, Douglas Lochhead, David Helwig, Ross Leckie, Don McKay, John Terpstra and Jan Zwicky, and newer names like Michael deBeyer, K.I. Press and Carmine Starnino. The quality of the Gaspereau Press poetry program has been recognized with many regional and national awards and nominations. In 2001, George Elliott Clarke’s Execution Poems won the Governor General’s Award. Carmine Starnino’s With English Subtitles won the 2004 A.M. Klein Prize and the 2006 Bressani Prize; Robert Bringhurst’s Ursa Major and Jan Zwicky’s Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences were both shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize; Michael deBeyer’s Rural Night Catalogue was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award; and David Helwig’s The Year One won the Atlantic Poetry Prize in 2005. (Just to name a few.) This anthology celebrates a decade of literary publishing, bringing samples of stylistically diverse poetry together in a single volume. Stay tuned for details about the penultimate and ultimate volumes to come in the fall.