Killing Time

Roger Nash is a philosophy professor and author of Night Flying.

Mayne shows that serious religious poetry is still possible in our age.
His poems of Jewish faith, though not quite devotional, often evoke
events in the Torah. He imaginatively re-creates, through the estranged
eyes of Terah’s son, Abraham’s abandonment of familiar idols for a
beckoning journey (“Terah’s Son”); through the all-too-human eyes
of the idolatrous multitude, Moses’ wrath at Sinai (“Down Here”).
These ancient tales are made new through the fresh perspectives of the
narrators. In his poems, Mayne achieves the essential, difficult
thing—a voice that speaks simply and naturally, avoiding both archaism
and self-conscious religious striving.

In a number of poems, Mayne masterfully grafts the imagery of sacred
scripture onto the present, so that both are deepened in the experiences
of the poems. In this, he bears comparison with predecessors such as
Judah Ha-Levi of 12th-century Moorish Spain, and with contemporaries
such as Yehuda Amichai of Israel. Mayne’s simpler voice provides a
necessary contrast with the rich irony, scepticism, and satire of
Amichai.

Mayne’s poetry meets difficulties when it moves beyond the ambit of
familiar biblical tale and imagery. It is as though the poet needs their
structure to shape his sense, and has found no satisfactory
alternatives. Who is the woman and what is the burning landscape in
“Trace”?

On the strength of its poems of faith, this volume will surely follow
two earlier works in being translated into Hebrew. Mayne’s verse has
been translated into five languages in addition to Hebrew and Yiddish.
He is a Canadian poet of international interest.