Recollected Poems, 1951 to 2004.

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Daryl Hine is a name familiar to dedicated poetry lovers for 50 years, but because he has chosen to live abroad he remains something of an unknown quantity for Canadian readers. This retrospective collection is therefore particularly welcome.

Hine is generally associated with Formalism (for him “a natural form of composition”), and the most obvious characteristic of his verse is its impeccable technique. The present book is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, but the date of each poem’s composition is given, and anyone who checks will find that, prosodically, the earlier poems are as distinguished as the later. His traditional metres appear to be effortlessly controlled, as is his use of rhyme—especially internal rhyme that keeps his sound and rhythms both taut and appealing. Above all, his diction is crystalline in its precision: “Time’s one-way traffic won’t reverse / Summer’s sentimental course / Or face the headlong universe / Perversely backwards to its source.” This kind of verse is considered old-fashioned by many contemporary poets, most of whom could never equal it themselves.

I fully approve and applaud Hine’s approach to poetry; yet I have to state that I found a troubling sameness in the collection. He can command a wide range of subjects and readily achieve any effect he desires. What I find lacking, however, is a sense of urgency. One gets the impression that writing is a form of exercise, a discipline, a set task. I never felt that a poem demanded to be written, or that the poet was ever passionately involved. Technically, he is at least the equal of any 20th-century poet who writes in regular verse. But I can’t detect the distinctive personality of Philip Larkin, the infectious commitment of Richard Wilbur, and certainly none of the flamboyant energy of James Merrill; or, nearer home, none of the verbal ebullience of Eric Ormsby or the probing intelligence of Jeffery Donaldson.

Read in small doses, these poems are consistently excellent; cumulatively, the effect is dissipated. For me, this is accomplished but not, alas, great poetry.