this may be the year

Carole Giangrande’s poetry collection, “this may be the year: poetry,” touched me at the crux of the title poem. Published on August 15, 2025 by Inanna Publications and Education Inc, the 70 pages of 62 poems dug in, sharp and fresh. 

Carole Giangrande came to Canada from the New York City area to study at the University of Toronto. She has worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC Radio. Giangrande has appeared in Grain, New Quarterly, Descant, Canadian Forum, Matrix, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and Books in Canada. Her poetry has been published in Queens Quarterly, Grain, Spiritus, The New Quarterly, Braided Way, Mudlark and Prairie Fire. Her essays have appeared in Eastern Iowa Review, EcoTheo Review and Antigonish Review. Giangrande lives in Toronto. 

“this may be the year” is the first text I have read by Inanna Publications and Education Inc.. An independent Canadian feminist press, Inanna Publications specializes in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction by and about women. The focus of the press is to “change and enhance women’s lives everywhere.” From Inanna’s website: 

“Our aim is to conserve a publishing space dedicated to feminist voices that provoke discussion, advance feminist thought, and speak to diverse lives of women. We have always been particularly interested in ensuring that the voices of disenfranchised and marginalized women are heard and we are committed to working closely with talented, emerging writers, as well as established writers.” 

Inanna Publications was founded in 1978 and is a publisher of one of Canada’s oldest feminist journals, “Canadian Woman Studies/ les cahiers de la femme.” Focussing on feminist topics, the press launched the Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series in 2004. Seeking to deepen the lives of Canadians and provide a space of representation for the diversity of Canadian women, Inanna publications has further provided educational resources used in university courses and advancing curriculum. Inanna Publications is a member of the Association for Canadian Publishers, the Ontario Book Publishers Organization and the Literary Press Group of Canada. 

Divided into four sections, “Birdmind,” “Breath of Ghosts,” Memory’s Shadow,” and “In The Long Grass,” the everyday laments and revelations of the ordinary become edged with the title poem. “This May Be the Year,” gives space to contemplation of when nature will not carry out its functions as we assume it always will or expect nature to. “It’s crossed my mind/ that this may be the year when trees/ will not turn green.” This line caught me, a hook and line. “This may be the year/ when earth, in grief, will turn its back on Spring, on stark woods, breaths of violet, hepatica,/ waxen bloodroot.” We have turned our backs on nature for over a millenia, I never thought of the capacity that nature would turn on us, and why wouldn’t she? 

This collection was a wake-up call, as shrill and knee-jerking as the warning shrieks of a raven penetrating both our physical and spiritual planes. I can only embrace “...for whatever comes.” 

Thank you to Carole Giangrande, Inanna Publications and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review.