Greg Bem reviews Stephen Collis’ NEW LIFE (2016)

Our pal Greg Bem was good enough to provide the first review for Stephen Collis’ NEW LIFE (2016) at Goodreads. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Stephen Collis, known for an activation of activism among and beyond the Canadian paradigm, brings forth a handful of new ideas and frames for approaching and appreciating the process of social life in the contemporary discourse/discord. Collis's poems here meet the standard and expectations of the majority of his work, but fall slightly flat in their compactness. The poems are certainly enjoyable and provocative, but fail to resonate with the louder bang+crunch of works that find appropriate space and context within a larger work. Still, as a brief glimpse, a shortened assortment, the book does stand on its own and deserves a read despite the want for it to be supplemental to a definite, greater significance (proven elsewhere and beyond by Collis himself).