Judy Gahagan
Review
A Country for Old Men and My Canadian Uncle, Ian Crichton Smith, Carcanet £7.95
A poet’s last volume demands an approach rather beyond the paradigm of criticism, inhibiting the reviewer’s response. Many of these poems are reflections on falling into age and the mellow acceptance that shines out of them does indeed suspend judgment for the more humanly important process of appreciation. On the other hand many artists have had to wait for their great age for the surge of radicalism that left fine works. Here the mellow often feels slack and overly easy and the observations without force. From ‘The Old Men’:
On the dew on the faces of the young
and their hopefulness
the old men must not cast shadows
Nevertheless there are many poems whose quality of great clarity and simplicity continue to represent the best of his work. The most consistently enjoyable poems, maybe because they don’t offer reflections, come from My Canadian Uncle, a series of poems recalling with such immediacy time, person and place you seem not to be reading but sitting together with him some long afternoon while he simply recollects. The book cover is lovely.
Page(s) 65
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