Year Zero

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of education at the University of
Prince Edward Island.

In Year Zero, Brian Henderson reflects upon life’s evolving cycle in
terms of his own family experience. His poems are intensely personal,
ranging in emotion from the poignant (as he looks back) to the ecstatic
(as he looks forward). Some poems carry individual dedications. Using a
variety of external phenomena as symbols, Henderson explores the change
of consciousness within him. His skill with words is commendable; vivid
metaphors abound, often as “first-liners,” as in “Wind ignites a
magnesium of snow.” A more sustained sequence of imagery is visible in
the later poems, especially frank, intimate, and anatomical when
describing the gestation and birth of “their” child. The closing
“Jour Né” poems have an incantational quality about them. The book
is nicely produced and has an eye-catching front cover.