Earth Moth

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
author of Calling Texas.

Peter Sanger is a remarkably careful poet: most of his poems are written
in strict stanza forms with rhymes and off-rhymes, and the words are
chosen with great care. At least half the poems contain at least one
word not in common use, but used with fine accuracy. The expression of
feeling is genuine but very restrained, and the subjects are often
presented rather obliquely. Sanger comes most alive when he is writing
about the dead: his poems in honor of Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau and
Paul-Йmile Borduas are among the best in the collection, and the
strongest poem of all is a long elegy for the poet John Thompson. There
is a deep sympathy with nature in the poems and some perceptive social
criticism. Sanger knows how to play his instrument; what he needs is to
play it with a little less restraint.