Deep North by Bert Almon, and NorthBound: Poems Selected and New by Leona Gom, and Afternoon Starlight by Charles Noble, and It Never Pays To Laugh Too Much by Gertrude Story

Abstract

256 Western American Literature among these attainments—but died a physical and mental ruin. Carolyn Johnston sums it up succinctly in this book when she states, “He was per­ sonally defeated by the very system he claimed that he wanted to overthrow, and which rewarded him lavishly.” Jack London—An American Radical? is the best assessment of London’s political writings and thought available and a perfect book to set alongside Philip Foner’s seminal Jack London: American Rebel (Citadel Press, 1947). DALE L. WALKER The University of Texas at El Paso Deep North. By Bert Almon. (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 1984. 78 pages, $7.95 Can. paper, $18.00 Can. cloth.) NorthBound: Poems Selected and New. By Leona Gom. (Saskatoon: Thistle­ down Press, 1984. 112 pages, $8.95 Can. paper, $20.00 Can. cloth.) Afternoon Starlight. By Charles Noble. (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 1984. 107 pages, $7.95 Can. paper, $18.00 Can. cloth.) It Never Pays To Laugh Too Much. By Gertrude Story. (Saskatoon: Thistle­ down Press, 1984. 139 pages, $9.95 Can. paper, $20.00 Can. cloth.) With only slight oversimplification, one might describe these four new volumes from Thistledown Press as encompassing the work of three Alberta poets and a fictionist from Saskatchewan. Starting for a change with last things, one might also note that Thistledown gives these writers very good treatment indeed: fine paper; clear print; first-rate editing; and binding that commands as it evinces respect. Thus four writers from the Canadian West are brought to our readers’attention under the very best of circumstances. Since this is Bert Almon’s fifth collection, the Texas-born poet is very likely already familiar to this audience. This new collection will probably please those readers who have already warmed to what Almon is all about: the writing of a poetry steeped in place and time; the creation of an immedi­ ately accessible poetic voice that replaces the patter of pre-explanation stand­ ard at poetry readings with poems which provide their own patter—which are self-contained and in need of no explanation beyond what they them­ selves give the listener. Contrasts between here and there, now and then, are what animate Almon’s poetry; those contrasts are the dramatic meat of material that often seems scarcely to have been shaped at all, but told instead straight-out. This sort of directness would be worthless were it not accompanied by a tone of total candor, and Almon’s poems have that; not only do they never make the reader apprehensive or suspicious, they also never raise their voice. Here is a section of a love poem which nicely encapsules what Almon does and is: Reviews 257 Once as I was dialing your number I looked out at the full moon rising and saw how close and orange it was I almost thought I could touch it Later as I was driving back home it was pale and shrunken in the sky and about equally distant from both of our houses Not every reader of poetry will want to toast Almon’s. Those who demand a poetry they can return to again and again may call his work too slight, too undemanding. Yet it is also as perfect for the reading platform as it is genial in its minimal pretensions: “Poetry is not breaking and entering /,” he says; “It is a message slipped under the door. / You don’t have to read it / It wants to tell you about danger / life and death and good parties / A mes­ sage slipped under your door.” If there is by implication a narrow road to Bert Almon’s deep North, the implication of Leona Gom’s title is a continuing servitude, an abiding bond­ age of the spirit to one’s heritage—in this case that of a farm family of German stock. Gom’s volume, lovingly printed on linen stock, represents a culling from such previous collections as her award-winning Land of the Peace, along with newer work; as with Almon, the voice is deliberately prairie flat, though in this case it cannot be said never to have been raised. Gom reflects on such matters as the casual violence toward...