Watching an Eagle

David E. Kemp is head of the Drama Department at Queen’s University.

I enjoy Cogswell’s poems as much for their accessibility as for their
insight. Cogswell’s imagination remains rooted in the fundamentals of
existence. In this latest collection, his poetry concerns itself with
love, death, the transience and the elusive ideal of beauty, and the
function of art and the artist. I suppose this poetry could be thought
of as traditional, but in no sense do I use the word traditional in a
pejorative way. Here the term means that Cogswell’s insight is both
penetrating and disturbing and that thankfully one does not need a
dictionary or a handbook on metaphysics to get to the meaning of a poem.

These poems arise from the poet’s deep sense of caring about his
fellow creatures. They are penned with a sense of irony, fantasy, and
humor and exhibit a complete absence of smug assuredness. Although the
75-year-old Cogswell can be considered one of the doyens of the Canadian
literary fraternity, his voice remains fresh and youthful, with a blend
of confusion and certainty and anger and resolution that many younger
poets are either unable or unwilling to articulate.

“In a Railway Compartment” is a wonderfully wry statement about
thwarted passion, a theme examined in a different light in “Entente
Cordial.” “Now It Can Be Told” deals poignantly with love and
betrayal, while “One Spring Morning” is so deeply personal in its
examination of lost love that it is almost painful to read. “Their
Unkissed Love” and “Balloon” are each tinged with the irony of
love’s regret, while in “Faux Pas” and “The First of the
First” Cogswell demonstrates the wonderfully down-to-earth quality
that makes his poetry so eminently readable. The fantasy inherent in
“A Modern Fairy Tale” is reminiscent of Stevie Smith, while “Deja
Vu” has overtones of Robert Frost.

Such diversity and so many pleasures are packed into this thin volume
that one yearns for more. It is indeed a pleasure to read poetry
characterized by adherence to conventions, a love of the poet’s crafts
and an unhurried, lightly ironic tone. With Cogswell, one is indeed in
the presence of a man of letters in the best sense.