Undone

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.

Goyette’s style has deepened since her first poetry collection, The
True Names of Birds. She has developed a long line, and her publisher
has accommodated that with the dimensions of the new book. However,
along with the interesting possibilities of the long line—she’s very
good at manipulating the line breaks—the work shows a diffuseness that
robs much of its potential. The book centres on a marriage breakup, and
the revelations of a lacerated consciousness sometimes approach soap
opera. Lovers of confessional poetry will love this book. Others may
prefer the nature poetry, which was the strength of her previous work.
“Vigil,” a poem about the death of the last water nymph, is a
cautionary story. The show-stopper in the book is a poem called
“Psychic,” which addresses oracles, some of them hilarious, to a
variety of individuals.

The influences of Issa, Miguel Hernandez, Pablo Neruda, and Elizabeth
Bishop pervade Goyette’s work. Her writing calls to mind Neruda’s
garrulousness but not the lapidary reticences of the other poets.
Doubtless this is a transitional volume. Her poem about the blighted
life of Charlie Parker (“Someone threw a brick through the window of
that man’s heart / and out flew a bird”) shows how well she can deal
with other people’s sorrows.