A Random Gospel

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

David Helwig has had a long career as a poet. Unfortunately, he appears
to be treading water with this latest collection. It is dominated by
poems about paintings and photographs that generally do little more than
gloss the originals. His translation of Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem”
fails to capture the music of that great poem. There is a somber love
sequence (“An Old Story”), and a couple of poems suggested by Thomas
Hardy. For the most part, the poems in this book lack the indelible
quality we associate with art.