The Book of Were.

Stephanie McKenzie is a visiting assistant professor of English at Sir
Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is
the editor and co-publisher of However Blow the Winds: An Anthology of
Poetry and Song from Newfoundland & Labrado

The Book of Were is Wayne Clifford’s 12th collection of verse. The back cover informs its readers that the book is about “were-animals or were-folk, changelings at the edges of those stable and self-congratulatory worlds connected directly to Platonic forms.” Within these pages we witness a “state of Were ... where the worlds seethe still truly wild.”

This is an erudite description, and so, too, is much of the verse. One must admire Clifford’s craft—his amazing knowledge of form and playful ease with etymology. However, this book’s excessive concentration on form, rhythm, and rhyme, coupled with esoteric subject matter, leaves the reader with a feeling of having encountered academic or poetic mathematics.

Clifford plays consistently with rhyme in this collection—most often with rhyming couplets or an abab rhyme scheme. At his best, Clifford sounds like an anachronistic Dickinson misplaced in 21st-century Canadian poetry, especially when his rhymes and rhythms are suddenly jarred by departures from an expected consistency. The poem “Masque” is a notable example: “D is for Death. / Of all of God’s beasts, / none other is fiercer; / none brings such release. / None else of God’s creatures / so fills out God’s grace, / for not one can offer / this singular prize: / Death’s God’s last monster / stares out from your eyes.”

This collection over-emphasizes form. Its neo-Augustan flair and the influence of doggerel at times, and especially in the first lines of “The Anatolian,” feels like Mother Goose: “He started Gandolf, ended Ghandi, / and venerable when he went. / He talked with me by what sound handy / got across just what he meant.” In addition, there are Shakespearean (“Sand Bowls”) and Petrarchan (“Turbulence”) sonnets. Though there is nothing wrong with sonnets or form, too much of a formalist emphasis detracts from Clifford’s capability.

In the next collection, perhaps, I would like to see Clifford loosen the reigns a bit and allow the reader to feel something more powerful than just an admiration for the craft.