шш in review DISCOURSE OF THE OTHER - University of British ...

BOOKS IN REVIEWdescription and deflate passion, exclamationmarks replace emotion, and Souster'scareless use of specific terms wouldweaken even newspaper prose. His lackof thought shows up embarrassingly in"Full Moon," in which his subject is anAlex Colville serigraph the actual titleof which is "New Moon" (Souster alsodescribes the "Full Moon" as "scythelike")and in "The Regina Manifesto:A Found Poem," where Souster takescredit for the poetic qualities of a documentthat is a stylistic descendant ofevangelical preaching and the KingJames Bible.Souster would "give my eye-teeth rightnow / just to have written any stanza /of Tantramar Revisited." His envy of SirCharles G. D. Roberts contrasts withDouglas Lochhead's sense of involvementin literary continuity. In a poemfrom High Marsh Road (1980) republishedin Tiger in the Skull, Lochheadshows his connection with tradition:the total glimpse of it [truth] as Robertstook to Tantramar.using his telescopehis eye revisited.now I search thesame dikes for details of shore-birds,the weirs hold straggler ducks.it isgood to have such footstepsCharles G.D.Roberts, pince-nez and tails, flieslike an angel by Stanley Spencer overthis placeThe poems in Tiger in the Skull arecarefully crafted, the centrifugal force ofthought and emotion almost, but neverquite, escaping the centripetal control ofform and technique. Like Roberts, Lochheadhas the rare ability to write simplyabout ordinary things and yet provokethe reader to new insights and emotions.Perhaps the most amazing feat of thissort is "The soft doves appear," in whichimage-making and description gentlyforce reconsideration of, yes, pigeons.Lochhead's poems about romantic or sexuallove are, thanks to his technical control,tense with emotion.The Creating Word consists of elevenintellectually uneven and tenuously relatedconference papers. "The Teachingof Poetry," by Robin Skelton, and "CreativeWriting: Can It Be Taught?" byRudy Wiebe, seem unpremeditated andsolipsistic. John Dixon and Martha Kingwrite about teaching "language arts" toyoungsters to enhance psychological development.Kenneth Smillie puts intoperspective the craze for computerassistedlearning and "computer literacy"in elementary and high schools. RowlandMcMaster and Norman Page both writebrilliantly, McMaster about Great Expectationsand Page about The Mill onthe Floss, but their essays are almost unrelatedto the stated topic, as is SusanJackel's "Canadian Literature in theSecondary Curriculum," a well-documentedand insightful history and descriptionof, and prescription for, theteaching of Canadian literature in Albertaschools.The first three essays in The CreatingWord are thoroughly researched andcarefully considered responses to thetopic by scholars of international standing.In "Construing and Deconstructing,"M. H. Abrams relates the philosophyof Jacques Derrida to the radicalskepticism of David Hume and rehearsesJ. Hillis Miller's reading of Wordsworth's"A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"to describe and demonstrate deconstructionism.Then, in outlining his reservationsabout practising and teaching deconstructivecriticism, Abrams explainseven more clearly the nature and uses ofthis discipline. Louise M. Rosenblatt callsdeconstructionists "basically anti-humanist"in "The Literary Transaction." Bydisregarding the emotional impact andhuman interest of literature, she argues,they disregard the reader. In Rosenblatt'sview, a work of literature is "evoked" by210