Impact: The Titanic Poems

By Billeh Nickerson

Billeh Nickerson is a Vancouver-based poet well-known across Canada for his playful, witty observations on sex and culture.  In Impact, his third poetry collection from Arsenal Pulp Press, Billeh turns his attention to a more serious subject that has fascinated him ever since he was a child: the sinking of the Titanic.

Published on the 100th anniversary of the disaster (which occurred on the night of April 15, 1912), Impact is an intimate and evocative poetry collection that depicts the tragedy in a series of poetic snapshots.  Based on historical research the author conducted in Belfast and his birthplace of Halifax, the poems document not only the history behind the ship's construction, but what life must have been like for those aboard her maiden voyage and in the years following her sinking.  While many readers are familiar with the various myths surrounding the ship and its sinking, this book offers a new, startlingly sensitive perspective with poems that take readers inside the hearts and minds of its passengers.