Worthy of His Fall

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

Harrison’s poems are mostly on two subjects: family affection and
politics. He has some talent, but his family poems are painfully
sentimental and show a fundamental tastelessness posing as frankness. A
reader can agree completely with his political views on American foreign
policy and still crave subtlety. The great English writer, Samuel
Johnson, defined “rant” as “high-sounding language unsupported by
dignity of thought,” and that pretty well sums up Harrison’s
tirades. One poem where he gets everything right is the delicate “The
Scholars Present Their Reconstruction of the Face of Jesus, December,
2002,” which uses a news story to comment tenderly on the death of an
uncle. A dying person might be comforted by a vision of the
reconstructed face: it was homely, and “I imagine the dying / hate the
beautiful surface. of things.” His tribute to Margaret Laurence, whom
he knew well, is also touching, but not so lyrically skilful.