All the Gold Hurts My Mouth

• Award-winning Canadian books from the first half of 2018

Katherine Leyton's fresh and vibrant debut collection takes on the sexual politics of the 21st-century, boldly holding up a mirror to the male gaze and interrogating the nature of images and illusions.

Confronting the forces of mass communication whether television, moviesor the Internet Leyton explores the subtle effects of the media on our perceptions and interactions, including the pain of alienation and the threat of violence simmering just below the surface.

And yet, for all its unflinching and raw lyricism, the poetry ofAll the Gold Hurts My Mouthis warm and searching, full of humour and hope. Engaging her readers with lush vocabulary and spare, tightly controlled forms, Leyton's poems become a rich quest for identity, authenticityand nature uncorrupted. Reaching gloriously from isolation and pain to connection with love, Leyton channels the wit of past feminists to create a manifesto for our time, an affirmation of what might be possible. (From Goose Lane)