Who's to Say?

Neil Querengesser taught in the Department of English, University of Calgary, Alberta.

Most of the poems in this slim first collection are worthwhile reading. They encompass a range of experimentation which includes the nostalgia of “Deja Vu,” “Nostalgia’s Cafe,” and “Three Poems,” the mildly comic trains of “The Beagle of the Hill,” the satirical thrust of “Christie Pits,” the imagism of “Northern Ontario,” and many variations on the theme of love. Even her reworking of the threadbare “alphabet” motif comes off quite well in “Alphabet of Love.” The tone of many of her poems is quiet and introspective as she meanders from one theme to the next, but some poems twist us quite away from the ordinary. The uneven and fully packed “Contact Train,” inspired by Alex Colville’s “Horse and Train,” needs more than a few readings to establish a proper orientation. Some of the other poems, on the other hand, like “Dream of Me,” are too ordinary, cute little pieces that would be better saved for private billets-doux, although when included as part of a larger poem series, such as “Just between You and Me,” they provide effective counterpoints for some of the more sophisticated passages. There is not much in this volume to distinguish Heller from her contemporaries, but there are nevertheless some good poetic moments. Her best poems are those which give the rough edges of experience to visions of childlike innocence, while destroying neither.