A Nervous City

April 2013
80 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-74-5

**Winner of the Kerry Schooley Award – Hamilton Literary Awards**

Whether it is the roads that weave through his native Hamilton, or the crowded streets of Cairo where tourists, it seems, are forbidden to walk, Pannell captures the hum and energy that animates these urban spaces in his latest collection. With an eye for the unexpected and genuine understanding of the common man, Pannell crosses and recrosses the city with his deft lines. In the end, A Nervous City walks the reader down streets they thought they knew but now see in a completely different light.

Reviews

Shelf Life (Jessica Rose, Hamilton Magazine, 01/08/2013)
"It may be gritty, and at times dark, but it’s Pannell’s ability to infuse moments of light that makes the collection shine."

Articles

Poets Rock Harbourfront (Susan G. Cole, Now Magazine, 03/04/2014)
"And how many times will you hear a reference to Toronto’s sad hockey team at a poetry contest? Thank Chris Pannell for changing the game."

Interviews

Chris Pannell - A Nervous City (an interview) (Toronto Quarterly, 09/08/2013)
“I’m not worried about how readers come at it, or what they take away from A Nervous City. I just wanted to render what these [modern] days are like. The internet has made us aware of more and more news from farther and farther off. It has shrunk the world. If ignorance is bliss, are we still comfortable with knowing, or thinking we know so much? We’ve got plenty to take responsibility for.”

Chris Pannell Q&A (Poetry Cobourg, 15/11/2012)
"More than any of my other books, A Nervous City is an attempt to get at the anxiety of modern times, to suggest that the sameness of globalization is changing us in important and frightening ways. A Nervous City is a little less personal than Drive, a little more challenging in its politics."

Videos

Chris Pannell reads the title poem of A Nervous City at the Toronto poetry launch in April.

About the Author

Chris Pannell’s A Nervous City (2013) won the Kerry Schooley Book Award from the Hamilton Arts Council. In 2010, his book Drive (2009) won the Acorn-Plantos Award for Peoples Poetry and the Hamilton Literary Award for Poetry. From 1993 to 2005 he ran the new writing workshop and published two anthologies of work by that group. He is a former board member of the gritLIT Literary Festival and a former DARTS bus driver. He hosts and helps organize the monthly Hamilton reading series Lit Live. His latest book of poetry – Love, Despite the Ache – won the 2017 Literary Award for Poetry from the Hamilton Arts Council.

Other Titles by this Author

Adventurize Your Summer! (2023)

Love, Despite the Ache (2016) 

Drive (2009)