Barbara Nickel

Books for Adults

Essential Tremor Poems by Barbara Nickel

Essential Tremor

“Like Wallace Stevens, invoked through epigraph and structural echo in Essential Tremor, Barbara Nickel grapples with the relation between spirit and the world of sensation in this compelling new book. Her brilliant sonnet sequence, “Corona,” is likely to stand among the finest (most nuanced) art to emerge from this harrowing time. Equally powerful is the consonantal riffing of her poem-set focusing on the body and its parts (sacrum/sacred). Sonically rich, formally adept, and allusively dense, Essential Tremor widens out to consider the nature of the body, of suffering, and of compassion through time. The vision is unsparing, yet leavened by grace.”

—Mary Dalton, Poet Laureate of the City of St. John’s

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Cover-Domain

Domain

Poems that explore how and where the boundary lines of our domains are drawn, how our homes are built, loved, and lost…

Richly detailed, grounded in truth, alive to the music in language, poems in Domain take us across place – from sisters juggling oranges in a Renoir painting to a wedding ring lost from the hatch of Apollo 16, from the empire of Catherine the Great to a Mennonite family on a summer evening – and through time: seasons of human loss, grief, renewal and love.

“…Domain confirms Barbara Nickel’s spot among an impressive generation of…poets who write with brassy formal assurance and waste-no-syllable control…~ The Globe and Mail

“With this book, Barbara Nickel establishes herself in the first rank of her generation.” ~ Quill & Quire

Awards
  • Quill & Quire Best Books of 2007
  • ReLit Award, Longlist

House of Anansi Press (Out of Print)
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Cover-Gladys-Elegies

The Gladys Elegies

Poems that explore the human spirit in this lush and musical award-winning debut collection…

With her classical music training, Barbara Nickel gives rhythm and grace to sonnets, long poems and prose poems. The Gladys Elegies contains The Malahat Review’s Long Poem Contest award-winning sequence “The Rosary Sonatas”.

“Indeed, if first books can be understood as boasts, then The Gladys Elegies is one of the best boasts of the year.~ The Gazette (Montreal)

Awards
  • Pat Lowther Memorial Award Winner

Coteau Books (Out of Print)
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News

Dear Peter, Dear Ulla has been selected as a finalist for the 2023/2024 Chocolate Lily Book Award. 


Barbara’s poem “Three-in-One,” originally published in Grain Magazine, has recently appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2024  (Biblioasis) edited by Bardia Sinaee.


Check out Barbara’s 45-minute teaching video on Creating Believable Characters for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ In Class video library.


Dear Peter, Dear Ulla was a finalist for the 2022 Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People.


Dear Peter, Dear Ulla has been nominated for the 2023 Rocky Mountain Book Award (Alberta Young Readers Choice Award).


The Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards (MYRCA) has nominated Dear Peter, Dear Ulla as a 2023 Northern Lights (Grades 7-9) finalist!


Essential Tremor reviewed in The Vancouver Sun. Read full review here.


Dear Peter, Dear Ulla is reviewed and “Highly Recommended” in CM (Canadian Review of Materials)! Read the full review here.


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Author Visits

Interested in booking Barbara to visit your school or library? Choose from a wide range of presentations, from poetry workshops to readings of historical fiction.

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