Earthworks

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia in Prince
George.

Earthworks is a successful first book by an interesting young poet. The
poems are all written with a short line and focus on a single
experience. Like a flash from a camera, each one briefly yet intensely
illuminates its subject. This hit-and-run technique thematically states
a view of life—that experiences, sensations, and meanings come and go
so quickly that we are never sure whether we are in the experience or in
its aftermath. “Marks,” the first poem in the book, explains the
method and its meaning: “think of / the marks on this page / as wild /
pawprints in snow / I make no promises / of destination / within their
loops / only / that something intangible / was here / now / (or is it /
already then?) / and has / for an instant / clawed / struggled / and
dissolved / all before you blink.”

Collins exhibits a very good eye for visual details and an ability to
build a scene in words. “Icon Grassworks” is a short, but vivid
example: “I watch another worker bend / unearth sod easily, drape /
grass over each forearm, amass / horizons of turf, expression / calm as
his eyes travel / up levels of the palette / this plain icon of sorts,
this / green business.”

Many poets have this descriptive skill, but few also have the
interesting, somewhat off-centre wit that Collins posses. In “To a
Mexican Penpal,” a letter writer uses every gringo-movie cliché,
blithely unaware of his own boorishness. In “Duck Hunting,” two men
who hate each other end up alone together—and armed—on a hunting
trip. And “Utopia Must Be Here” is filled with highly educated young
people discussing esoteric subjects while performing the menial jobs
they have had to take upon graduation.

Thistledown Press is to be congratulated for bringing this exciting new
writer before the public.