Going Around with Bachelors.

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British
Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and author of The Salvation Army and the
Public.

If for no other reason than to read “I Solemn” (or to listen to Agnes read it, because a CD is included), this volume of poems is worth every cent. But equally fine are “Almost a Word” and “Dad and the Fridge Box,” and especially poignant (though not maudlin) is “Homecoming at the End.” Indeed, they are all magnificent poems, for Agnes Walsh not only has a “way with words,” startling you with phrases like, “The sun was all hallelujah, and gave the grass that warm, green smell” or “The open canvas flapped in the wind, billowing out like a blossoming magnolia,” but she knows the ways of Newfoundlanders, understands their lives, sees into their hearts, and invests their everyday experiences with significance beyond the ordinary. Whether it is a child’s first glimpse of a dead person, or a daughter’s final farewell to her adoring father, or simply the act of “Looking on Water,” Walsh evokes a kinship between people and with nature that transcends the mere physical. She has a fine sense of nuance, a lovely lilting voice, and a genuine feeling for the apt subjects of true poetry. Altogether enjoyable.