Reconciliation Poems

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Toronto-born poet Adam Getty, who studied at the University of Toronto,
displays his erudition in verse. Yet he dropped out, moved to Hamilton,
and took a job at a slaughterhouse in Burlington. Since his workplace
and other proletarian concerns influence his poetry, he has placed
himself in an Anglo-Canadian populist tradition, exemplified by Milton
Acorn and Tom Wayman.

Getty prefers observation to rebellion, but is capable of eloquent
defiance. In “The Maid of the Mist,” he expresses disillusionment
with the revelation that “our shepherds had let wolves into the pen /
to stand over us and whip us, to work us harder for less pay.”
Unfortunately, such verse is more likely to appeal to “limousine
liberals” than actual workers. The apathetic ones watch David
Letterman and the committed seek out Michael Moore.

The prologue, “Sonnets for Red Hill Creek” is a demonstration of
literature’s ability to surpass life’s limitations. Since neither
the CBC nor Hamilton’s CHCH Television intend to hire poets to
document environmental degradation, Getty reveals its results with
measured sentiments.

“Blue Ontario” celebrates the alternative, “a bluer inland”
that is part of the province’s remaining wilderness. He celebrates the
backwoods, but remembers our alienation from it by inviting the reader
to “Return now to Homer, / Grisham, or some bald account of bombing in
Yugoslavia.” Since the author is an educated contemporary man, he lets
one wonder if “Homer” is the classic poet or the cartoon icon.

This book, which won the 2004 Gerald Lampert Award for Poetry, offers
topical treats in a desert of subtleties. Getty thus becomes Canadian
poetry’s equivalent of the “actor’s actor,” a man admired by his
peers, such as Don Domanski and Patrick Lane, but largely ignored by the
public.