Sweet Betsy from Pike

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

Rogal takes the familiar American folk song of the Gold Rush era but
(significantly) transposes it into a Canadian context. There is a good
deal of anger in his version. The folksy travelogue of the original is
reframed as indictment of “humanity’s sport with self-extinction.”
In particular he excoriates society’s treatment of its own rich
ecological heritage. His mood is variously witty, ironic, mocking. He
matches erudite introductory quotation with his own demoticised language
of the man-in-the-street, “of the earth earthy,” scatological
metaphor and all.

Many of the poems in this collection have been previously published.