Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

Bhabha in the conclusion, their comments
are merely inserted into the essay; they
make no difference to the volume except to
point up what it has left unexamined.
A very different volume might have
emerged had the conclusion been the introduction
and all of the essays re-worked from
that point. Without the deployment of the
theorized insights quoted at the end, the
essays are not specifically an analysis of
"[c]ultural difference as a process that
establishes meaning" as Bhabha recommends;
they are instead an implicit plea for
recognition of "cultural diversity" where
"culture [i]s [only] an object of empirical
knowledge," where Italian-Canadian literature
can simply be added to CanLit. The
limits of the supplement as add-on and the
insights of supplement as pharmakon are
articulated very clearly in Sneja Gunew's
excellent comparative Foreword to the volume.
Between the Foreword and the
Conclusion, important archival work is
begun, but without revision and editing of
dated essays to eliminate repetition, and
without rethinking of commonplaces about
forms of dominance in CanLit, the volume's
contribution to scholarship remains
limited.
Over the Years
Christopher Wiseman
Remembering Mr. Fox. Sono Nis $12.95
Ralph Gustafson, ed.
Collected Poems, Volume III. Sono Nis $24.95
Reviewed by Neil Querengesser
Remembering Mr. Fox is Christopher
Wiseman's seventh collection of poetry. As
the first word of its title indicates, this is a
work that looks to the past, its author seeking
there materials with which he might
replenish and also comprehend the present,
both his own and that of his readers. In this
he succeeds admirably. The forty-one elegies,
meditations, and occasional poems
that make up this book are meticulously
crafted and inspired. They reflect a yearning
for what was and what might have
been, always avoiding the extremes of
maudlin nostalgia on the one hand and
stolid historicity on the other. It is memory
itself in these poems that grows preeminent,
acquiring its own reality from the
things remembered. We recognize the compelling
significance of words as constituents
of memory, the worlds therein created as
vital as the supposedly irrevocable past
from which they are engendered.
To look to the past as a poet is not necessarily
to recreate history, but rather to
explore the impact of the idea of the past
upon our memories and emotions. The
poems in this collection turn upon a variety
of emotions: outrage, joy, bewilderment,
mirth, longing, sorrow, affection,
and many others whose shades are subtly
and effectively evoked. Words on old postcards
blossom into a delightfully intricate
anthology of Edwardian portraits that skilfully
and sympathetically mingle past and
present, text and image. The compelling
landscape of England's Yorkshire coast,
particularly the town of Scarborough and
its environs, figures strongly in many of the
poems, as do other settings more distant
(or closer to home, depending on the reader's
perspective). Born and educated in
England and a resident of western Canada
for over a quarter century, the poet serves
as an essential bridge between the old
world and the new, both temporally and
spatially, providing some interesting connections
between such poems as "Anne
Bronte's Grave—the Flowers" and
"Cemetery near Beiseker, Alberta" which
evoke distinctive images yet strangely complementary
emotions.
The dead are here in this book, oddly
alive in many ways, as are the old and the
once-forgotten. The poet's respect for the
dignity—let us say the sanctity—of the old
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