Theories of the World

David E. Kemp is chair of the Drama Department at Queen’s University
and author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Theories of the World, Laurie Kruk’s first volume of poetry, grew out
of a manuscript that received an honorable mention in the 1989 national
Nora Epstein Creative Writing Competition.

Kruk is at her best when dealing with remembered aspects of childhood:
“Returns,” “Visiting the Folks,” “My Father’s Coat,”
“Walking with Father,” and “My Father’s Days” are all
intensely personal poems that nevertheless manage to speak directly to
the reader. Kruk has a particular talent for chronicling old age; some
of the most effective and moving poems in this collection are concerned
with the elderly.

The poems that depart from the realm of family, friends, and the aged
are not as effective. Kruk needs a specific personality to focus on in
order to make us see things in her own highly original way. It is in
that very particular and personal mode that she produces some superbly
etched observations. Hers is a name to watch.