Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana and Other Poems

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Literary critic, editor, biographer, historian, poet, political
commentator, playwright, art critic, traveller, and travel writer:
Woodcock’s talents are apparently endless. He is somewhat less
well-known as a poet, I fancy, than in some of his other manifestations
(despite the fact that he published a thick volume of Collected Poems
some years ago). Yet he is a poet, and not just a writer of verse.

The present book divides into three parts, all containing specimens of
different types of poetry. The last section is devoted to
“Maskerman,” a verse-drama that turns out to be a curious story of
marital discord, twisted motives, and romantic yearning, full of the
comedy of pathos—absorbing, readable, but belonging (I would guess) to
an earlier stage of his writing. The middle section, “Lyric Poems,”
contains some delicately poignant poems about old age, memory, and
thoughts of coming death. Despite thematic continuities, they embrace a
remarkable range of tone and mood.

But the glory of the book is the title poem, which takes the form of a
series of “epic fragments” recreating the life of Tolstoy. These are
made up of short-lined, dazzlingly simple poems spoken either by Tolstoy
himself or by his daughter Sasha. The poems are crystal clear (though
familiarity with Tolstoy’s biography is desirable), beautifully
molded, deeply satisfying. Alas, nationalists will probably shrug the
poem off because it “isn’t Canadian,” while the tone-deaf,
unresponsive to subtle cadences, will dismiss it as prosaic. There is,
however, both music and wisdom here, and if these are old-fashioned
poetic qualities, so be it.

A notable achievement, then, from Canada’s supreme all-round man of
letters.