Poetry
Cannibal Rats
- Publisher
- Véhicule Press, “Signal Editions” series
- Published
- March 5, 2026
- Pages
- 80
- Price
- $19.95
- ISBN
- 9781550656992
- Language
- English
On the publisher’s site (opens in a new tab) In bookstores (opens in a new tab)
Governor General’s Award-winner Richard Greene’s remarkable new collection, Cannibal Rats, is rich with searing wisdom, complicated grace, and magisterial craft. Reporting from locales as disparate as the Civil War battlefields of America and the storm-worn shores of Newfoundland, “where, as almost nowhere else, you can hold / in hand the inner substance of the world,” Greene bears witness to historical injustices, meditates on how “art and memory unravel” under the auspices of mortality, and wrestles with the loss of a beloved mother. “[T]here’s a limit to what the heart can learn / without pause and repair,” he writes in the stunning travelogue that ends the book, “but I should return / to this place of bayonets and canon, / small gesture of one still living to what is gone.” Cannibal Rats is a major accomplishment from one of Canada’s most accomplished poets.
REVIEWS
” Greene has written a cracking volume filled with poems you wish you had written yourself, poems that entertain, and illuminate what used to be called ‘the human condition.’ Everyone in Canada knows who he is, but with the publication of Cannibal Rats he has just gone and earned himself a global audience.” – Colin Carberry, The Woodlot
“In this age of free and freer verse, Richard Greene’s regular rhymes are welcome, not just because they buck a trend, but also because the rhymes are soft, light, and unobtrusive. What makes them so is the enjambment of lines and thought that flow across measured sentences and emotional responses.” – Michael Greenstein, The Seaboard Review of Books
“Greene can be “overcome by reverence,” and in a world increasingly encouraged to practice being resentful his voice is a welcome one. … Whatever the reality, Greene asks elegant questions in a deeply worthy book with an eye-catching, somewhat disturbing title.” – Alex Boyd, BoydBlog
Description from the publisher Véhicule Press, seen in October 2026 · Source ↗
Also by Richard Greene
-
Dante’s House Richard Greene
From Véhicule Press
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We Drove All Day for This Bruce Taylor
-
Qaf’s People Sadiqa de Meijer
-
My Summer Vacation Zeenat Nagree
-
Morgan’s Castle Jan Hilliard
-
How to Move On Joel Yanofsky
-
Private Number David Homel
-
Fan Mail Jason Guriel
-
The Inferno Dante Alighieri
-
Quietly, Loving Everyone Curtis John McRae
-
Stolen Plums Alice Turski
