Poetry: To consider history, we must make it ours

Reviewed by Barbara Carey (Toronto Star, Sunday, January 17, 2010)

Barbara Carey reviews God of Missed Connections by Elizabeth Bachinsky and Hymn by John Barton

A B.C. poet ponders her Ukrainian heritage, with play to leaven the pain

Poetry is considered one of the "lively arts" but that doesn't mean that it can't cross paths with the strait-laced sciences. Elizabeth Bachinsky brings something of the archeologist, with a postmodern tweak, to God of Missed Connections. A touch of the enterprising scientist also informs John Barton's Hymn.

... THE VICTORIA POET and editor John Barton once commented that he regards a poem as "a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance." He's not wildly experimental in the formal sense – most of his poems are lyrical meditations – but his work is passionate and probing, filled with vivid turns of phrase.

In Hymn (Brick Books, 128 pages, $19), he reflects on both intimacy and solitude, sifting through recollections of love affairs (at points of smooth sailing and on the rocks) and his travels (in places ranging from the Greek islands to Northern Ireland), while keenly aware of being an outsider in a predominantly heterosexual world.

Words and phrases often do double duty, which is why his intricate poems not only repay rereading, they virtually require it. Barton's line breaks also frequently hint at more than one meaning. A tryst with a lover, soon to be an ex-lover, is described as "a sad Eden happily stale / mated by guile and artifice.")

His work is also richly metaphorical, with images drawn from the natural world. A couple's differences are revealed through their botanical preferences ("feyly manicured blooms" versus "hardy / weediness").

Barbara Carey is a frequent contributor to these pages. Her Poetry column appears monthly