Field Marks.

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

Méira Cook has compiled a valuable introduction to the poetry of Don McKay for the Laurier Poetry Series. Her opening essay is a good survey of McKay’s idiosyncratic approach to the poem, with an emphasis on his bird watching and his nature poetry in general. She also pays particular attention to his use of metaphor. In McKay’s work, the metaphor is a tool of exploration. The 40 poems that follow provide an excellent overview of his poetic output. The book ends with an essay on poetry by McKay himself, a sustained meditation on the mythical figure of Hermes—source of the term “hermeneutic,” for the art of interpretation—and his invention of the lyre. It is typical of McKay to provide a myth as a way into questions of literary art. The collection has a useful bibliography. A reader will learn much from this concise collection.