Esplanade Fiction
Signal Poetry
Since 1981, over one hundred titles have been published in the Signal Editions poetry series—the poetry imprint at Véhicule Press. One-quarter of the list are first-time authors.
About the editor
Poet, essayist and critic Carmine Starnino became editor of Signal Editions in January 2001, succeeding founding editor Michael Harris. Starnino is the author of four books of poetry including The New World which was nominated for the 1997 A.M. Klein Prize for poetry and the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and Credo which won the 2001 Canadian Authors’ Association Prize for poetry. He is the editor of The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry. Lazy Bastardism: Essays & Reviews on Contemporary Poetry was published in 2012. He lives in Montreal.
Selected titles
Laws & LocksBeginning with the arrival of the Campbell clan in Canada in 1827— “pale Scot farmers fording the river, / seated backwards in refusal”—Laws & Locks tracks the history of one family’s struggle with depression, madness and mental illness. Chad Campbell’s first book of poetry is a brilliant investigation, at once dazzling and unflinching, into the way our predecessors bear on our choices in the present, and how present-day consequences extend backwards in time. A skilled, self-possessed and clear-eyed poet, Campbell has produced a work of art that, while not quite confessional, transforms the private, dark, often stigmatized regions of his life into powerful poetry. It is a bracing debut. “Come now to the burning forest / not burning anymore and feel / safe enough.”
