Read a review of “bright news of gladiolas” on Harbor Review by Cameron Morse. Rage Hezekiah, author of Stray Harbor and Unslakable Her first collection of poetry, Riot Lung (Thistledown Press, 2012), was shortlisted for a 2013 ReLit Award and a Saskatchewan Book Award. Lisa Baird has a voice that is fierce, queer, accessible, and alchemical. Westhale’s lyrics are “beaming and resplendent and prismatic-” “I want to touch them.” Leah Horlick is a writer and poet from Saskatoon.A 2012 L ambda Literary Fellow in Poetry, she holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. Leah Horlick, author of For Your Own Good. I am just thrilled to announce that For Your Own Good has been named a 2016 Stonewall Honour Book in the Barbara Gittings Literature Award category.Huge thanks to the American Library Association and their GLBT Round Table for this incredible gift. The poems in this collection leave us simultaneously destabilized and riddled with hope, they emit haloes of something bigger than us. Journeying through California and Montana, rich and arid landscapes, their unabashed poems are “headlights on rural roads when the deepest night turns.” Westhale praises saguaros and citrus fruit in equal measure, their images radiate with strange power. Read an excerpt of this book Add to Wishlist. Leah Horlick, author of For Your Own Good and Moldovan Hotelīright news of gladiolas is a tuning fork, resonating with the electricity of gas stations and underpasses, “the tectonic malaise of boulevards.” July Westhale’s collection is awash in petaled wonder, a “super bloom” of unfolding wisdom and vulnerability.

Its own superbloom of aubades and nocturnes, bright news of gladiolas is bright news indeed.

How lucky we are, to experience the world through July Westhale in these new poems! Westhale’s voice is a soft and powerful searchlight on the page, brushing over the moon, Santiago, the window sill, and the reader with rhythm and precision.

For your own good leah horlick