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How do poetic voices from Canada’s suburbs reshape how we see urban transit spaces — and how does poetic form itself become a vehicle for that transformation? In a new article published in the American Review of Canadian Studies (Routledge), Irene Gammel and Christiane Tarantino examine Rouge: Poems (2018) by Adrian De Leon to show how subway travel becomes both subject and structure in a racially and spatially charged poetic narrative. Through experimental form and commuter lyricism, De Leon charts a sub/urban geography of Toronto that challenges cultural hierarchies and reclaims space through verse.
Abstract:
This article draws on theories of Canadian suburban literature (Cheryl Cowdy 2022) and suburban settlement (Zhixi Zhuang 2024), alongside experimental and subway poetics (Eric Schmalz 2022; Tim Conley 2014), to explore the Canadian suburban poetic imaginary. Focusing on Adrian De Leon’s 2018 collection Rouge: Poems, which maps a subway journey from western Toronto to the eastern suburb of Scarborough, the article examines how poetry serves as both a lyrical and rhetorical narrative, interrogating the relationship between city and suburb, particularly the suburb’s role as the city’s shadowed double. Ultimately, the article argues that Rouge: Poems uses lyrical emotion, play, humor, and satire to depict the suburban and subway settings not just as thematic backdrops, but as active, generative forces that question and reshape urban–suburban relationships, expanding our knowledge of suburban and subway poetics.
Keywords:
Adrian De Leon; Canadian poetry; suburban literature; subway poetry; Toronto
Citation:
Irene Gammel and Christiane Tarantino. “Rouge: The Poetics of Adrian De Leon’s Sub/Urban Toronto.” American Review of Canadian Studies, vol. 54, no. 4, 2025, pp. 374-387.
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