James Pollock is the author of Sailing to Babylon, which was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award in Poetry, runner-up for the Posner Poetry Book Award, and winner of an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association; and You Are Here: Essays on the Art of Poetry in Canada, a finalist for the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award for a collection of essays. He is also the editor of The Essential Daryl Hine, which made The Partisan's list of the best books of 2015. His poems have been published in The Paris Review, AGNI, Poetry Daily, the National Post, and other journals in the U.S. and Canada, broadcast on CBC Radio, and listed in Best Canadian Poetry. Several of his poems appear in anthologies, including The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry, The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2013 . . .
My review of four new books of poems, by Tim Lilburn, Laurie D. Graham, Jacob McArthur Mooney, and Matt Rader, has been published in the July-August 2016 issue of the Literary Review of Canada.
Very pleased that my poem "Sailing to Babylon" appears in a new anthology called The Poet's Quest for God: 21st Century Poems of Faith, Doubt and Wonder (Eyewear Publishing, 2016), published in London, U.K. The book was edited by Fr. Oliver Brennan and Todd Swift, with Kelly Davio and Cate Myddleton-Evans.
Delighted that my foreword to The Essential Daryl Hine is a prose feature at Poetry Daily.
Derek Webster praises The Essential Daryl Hine in The Partisan: "The Essential Daryl Hine makes it obvious that the boy from B.C. really is one of the best we have. I don’t think it’s too great a leap to say that in Pollock, Daryl Hine has found his ideal editor. . . . Reading this selection, it's possible to tune into Hine at the wavelengths on which he was broadcasting. The experience, for me, is tremendous, exquisite and heartbreaking."
I'm delighted that The Essential Daryl Hine was named one of the best books of 2015 by The Partisan. Brooke Clark, in his recommendation, describes Hine as "The best Canadian poet most people have never heard of," and adds that "this selection (which includes a brief, thoughtful introduction and a biographical sketch) is the ideal way to get to know a poet who deserves to be better known."
In a short essay that appears on the Agni Blog, I tell about finding and reading Daryl Hine.
One of The Partisan's Best Books of 2015.
Thrilled that my poem "Sailing to Babylon" appears in the exciting new anthology Earth and Heaven: An Anthology of Myth Poetry, edited by Evan Jones and Amanda Jernigan, and published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside. Other contributors include many of the best modern and contemporary Canadian poets.