The Best Lack All

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of education at the University of
Prince Edward Island.

The Best Lack All, Schmidt’s first collection of poems, received the
prestigious New Muse Award in 1995. Schmidt’s special concern is for
what people can do with their own lives and/or those of others. Events
and characters provide the backdrop for the poems.

Schmidt is a poet of varying moods and matching styles. For the many
scenes depicting the seamier side of life, he uses street
language—short, sharp, crude, sometimes uncomfortably scatological.
Elsewhere there is a sense of pathos: the pity of it all. Or, he can be
deadly suave, as in “Mothers,” where his irony matches that of a
Dean Swift. His use of the crocodile as symbol is particularly apt; it
invariably conveys the prevailing aura of latent evil and lurking
danger. By comparison, the crocodile motif on the front cover of the
book is far less convincing.