Château Puits '81

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

This book has a cover that suggests a wine bottle. Like many rare wines,
it is likely to appeal to some palates but not to others. It’s a bit
like an eccentric local vintage not usually available for export.
Certainly Anderson has skill with words: her poems are filled with
brilliant use of diction and elaborate verbal play, and she has far more
interest in lineation than most contemporary poets. Her subject is a
year spent in the South of France, in Vaucluse. She details life there
vividly. She seems resolved to prove Wallace Stevens’s claim that
“English and French are one language.” The book has an appendix
identifying 100 French terms used in the text. She writes about her
experiences in a remarkably whimsical manner. The book is a kind of
journal of things seen and observed in France, ranging from academic
conferences to the flora and fauna. A preying mantis named George gets
pages and she can write about a cat at great length. Not all readers
will like her fascination with the trivia of daily life. This is
certainly a jubilant book; it abounds in exclamation points and
capitalized words. The wine is definitely sparkling, with a little more
fizz than body.