Everyone at This Party

On CBC Books’ list of 29 works of Canadian poetry to watch for in spring 2020In Tanja Bartel’s riveting poetry debut, the bucolic Vancouver suburbs clash with the interpersonal. The reader dips into the lives of individuals whose day-to-day is anything but peaceful, altered by luck and choice, fear and failure. In poems that light upon themes such as regret, guilt, and human empathy, Bartel highlights the arbitrary nature of life and the demons that persist within. Unsentimental and blunt, but ultimately forgiving, Everyone at This Party scans the suburbs and tries to make sense of our private selves.