Sonnets from a cell by bradley Peters

Brick, 2023

Bradley Peters’ debut collection of poems—inspired by his own experiences within the Canadian prison system—seeks the rigidity of an imposed and institutionalized form, but it also bristles at the imposition of that form onto the messiness of the human experience. These striking sonnets follow patterns they can’t seem to break, feed and fuel each other with a prisoner’s vocabulary, rage at the machine and cry for help, and seek meaning in the widening dialogical chasm between form and content. From the organization (in accordance with the deteriorating psychological effects of incarceration on inmates) to the brilliant, subtle design by Natalie Olsen (the fourteen bars on the cover; the squat, sanitary font), this book is a crucible where freedom and institutionalization wrestle it out. Compelling, anxious, violent, and straining towards what little light makes it through the cracks, this is poetry that does, terrifyingly, what it says.

—Owen Percy, Dundas