The Footling and Other Poems of Arrival

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

The Footling is an intense and deeply personal collection of poems, more
than half of which constitute a poetic documentation of the premature
birth of the author’s son. Essentially, the other half of the
collection presents another documentation: of the poet’s relationship
with his wife, from proposal through engagement to the honeymoon.

I enjoyed the first part of the book, especially the poem about the
honeymoon, but it must be said that while the writing is honest, with
flashes of perception, the depth of insight is not great.

In “The Footling,” which records dated impressions of the premature
birth of Jamie, the author’s son, this lack of deep insight continues,
although it is offset somewhat by a highly charged, personal, and
committed style of writing.

But it is one of the jobs of the poet to take an everyday event, such
as a birth, and, through it, both show us insights into our own
experiences and offer perceptions that move away from the individual
into the general—in other words, to broaden our field of experience by
transcending the merely personal. This I feel Prager does not do. While
the subject of Jamie’s birth was no doubt a deeply moving experience
for the author, that experience is not communicated to readers in a way
that will help us to either understand Prager’s experience more
meaningfully or change our own lives as a result of the insights we have
shared. The book functions as an account of a deeply moving personal
experience, but it fails to use that experience to broaden the
understanding and insight of those who read it.