Homage to Henry Alline and Other Poems

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

This is a sizable collection of poems. Unfortunately, most of it is dry
and uninspired. The title sequence is a tribute to an 18th-century
evangelist. Lochhead has done his research carefully, but Alline never
comes alive. We simply learn too little about him. The use of brief
sentences is an irritating mannerism that impedes reading without
contributing any useful poetic effect. Here and there the tangles of
syntax suggest Hopkins or Berryman. The final sequence, “Vigils &
Mercies,” a study of an isolated man in a lonely house, is also
constricted with brief sentences. It relies too much on trying to create
mood without incident.

Between the two sequences are poems, and groups of poems, of mixed
success. When he is writing about nature, a favorite theme in his work,
Lochhead achieves some precision and particularity. The brevity of his
lines creates a sense of meticulous notations, which is more effective
than his use of short sentences for narration in the longer sequences.
However, he has nothing new to add to contemporary nature poetry. The
set of concise elegies in the middle of the book suffers—like the
Henry Alline poems and “Vigils & Mercies”—from vagueness: there is
genuine feeling, but a lack of context. Lochhead needs a more vivid
style.