Perhaps the best way to introduce nomad-poet Jordan Mounteer's first poetry collection, liminal (Sono Nis, 2016), is to report one's initial response could likely be, "Hey, this guy can really write!" Intensity shimmers in nearly every line, "As if a hammer over and over / has bent my need to be alone / upon itself." A world traveller (Japan, East Asia, East Africa, South America, New Zealand) housed in the Slocan Valley upon publication, Mounteer is also a veteran tree planter who has been shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, the Montreal International Poetry Prize and the Malahat Review's Open Season Award. $15.95 978-1-55039-247-0

[BCBW 2016]