Terrorist Letters

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

Like most good poetry, Ann Diamond’s poetry is subversive. Beneath the
surface normality lurk pain and horror. Nothing in Diamond’s universe
is what it seems; even an action as mundane as trying on a pair of shoes
takes on sinister overtones. Especially good are those poems that deal
with a dictator, following a classic structure of horror followed by
revelation. Diamond is equally effective on the subject of children: the
innocence of childhood disappears before our eyes.

This is poetry that packs a punch, that does what poetry is supposed to
do—make us see things in a different way.