Forecast: Pretty Bleak

“This is no quaint voice from the Land of Anne. Suffused with our era’s geist and angst, which have penetrated to the rural periphery, Bailey is a sharp-eyed, clarion-voiced witness.” —Richard Lemm

Confessional, candid, and insightful, Forecast: Pretty Bleak looks at life in rural PEI. These poems explore climate change, work, family, love, and the idea that sometimes all you’ve got is hope for better weather and favourable winds tomorrow.Praise for Chris Bailey and Forecast: Pretty Bleak

"I grew up in Southwest Saskatchewan, about as far from a big body of water as you can get, yet these poems by a writer 'baptized by sea' speak in the voices of my prairie ancestors, rough and colourful and true. Few in this country write so eloquently and lyrically about the lives of working people. Chris Bailey throws his net of wonders from his father’s boat and pulls in all the tragedy and humour a life can hold. Often what gets caught are wise lines that break the heart: 'Maybe it’s best to learn the hard things young / and never forget.' I won’t forget this book."
—Lorna Crozier, author of After That

“Chris Bailey’s plainspoken, clear-eyed poems transmit the perils of ‘Existence / carved from sandstone, baptized by sea’ with an eloquence that remains rooted in both its vernacular music and the harsh demands of work. Scrupulously spare yet deeply moving, they recall the work of Alden Nowlan. This is essential reading.”
—Don McKay, author of Lurch

"Clear-eyed and unflinching, but also compassionate, Chris Bailey writes of the realities of commercial fishing in contemporary PEI, 'of blood and sea.' His poems showcase a storyteller’s gift for character and narrative tension, attending to the desires, loves, and fears that accompany us through our days."
—Annick MacAskill, author of Shadow Blight



CHRIS BAILEY is a graphic designer and commercial fisherman from Prince Edward Island. He holds a MFA Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Chris’ writing has appeared in Grain, Brick, The Fiddlehead, Best Canadian Stories 2021, Best Canadian Stories 2025, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, What Your Hands Have Done, is available from Nightwood Editions. His piece, Fisherman’s Repose, was a winner of the 2022 BMO 1stArt! Award. Forecast: Pretty Bleak is his second poetry collection.Striped and silver bodies of mackerel quiver,
shiver their lives away in plastic trays of chutes.
Fall into tanks. Bleed out, breathe in
their own blood till they drown. Nothing like nightmares
till a hook hooks one between the eyes,
catches a pipe, leaves the big half of its face
on the line. An eyeball dangles, the body
trembles like Zach’s retriever when thunder rolls.

I see this and think how different a life you lead, have led.
You, this woman who went to her daughter’s room
with gentle hands and took from that room a spider,
walked down to the door to set it loose in the yard.
When I think of this it is night. Stars pinned like gloves
to dry from the sky above your house. A warm breeze
in lilac trees. Fireflies flash. You watch this spider vanish
between blades of grass and I think of this, and you
and the porch light in your hair, DeepWoods Off! on your skin,

the bareness of your right wrist. I wind in mackerel hooks
for the day. Go to the bathroom at the harbour,
an anchor on its sign. MEN. The bivalve shell: WOMEN.
Run water from a Waltec faucet. Pump soap. Scrub off
blood, scales. Count the money I’ve yet to be paid.