Adventures in Ideas

Bob Lincoln is Director of Acquisitions at the University of Manitoba
Libraries.

Adventures in Ideas tries to illuminate abstractions by the use of poems that are neither specific nor concise in their imagery — a difficult proposition. These poems are tolerable, but they are rather like a well-meaning sermon that does not raise the congregation to its feet.

The problems that Hamper faces arise from the format he has chosen and the structure of the book itself. We read poems that live not by their power to surprise, delight, or amaze, but rather by an intellectual appeal to loose pieties. Harper divides his book into sections — Eros, Nature, Cosmos, and Karma — and has assembled poems that deal with these themes. The poems are straightforward in that they tell us exactly what the author believes to be true, but they do not demonstrate it. To quote Zukofsky, there are many words here that mean little or nothing — either as sound, image, or idea.

Harper’s poetic urge is valid and sincere, but the execution is weak. The poems in the section “Karma” are typical. These poems are like prose without action or drama. An interesting comparison is with Kushwant Singh’s story “Karma” (Modern Indian Short Stories, New Delhi, 1983) and Hamper’s “The Soul in Karma” or “Life.”

A more instructive comparison is between Philip Larkin’s poem “Days” (The Whitsun Weddings, London, 1964) and Hamper’s “Now.” Both deal with the concept of life and its meaning. The opening stanzas of these two poems:

Hamper is still avoiding the issue at the end of the first stanza, while Larkin has set his topic, established a mood, and given the reader some images to remember. Perhaps Yeats had the right idea about his early poems written on Indian subjects or on shepherds and fauns — every time he reprinted them, he considered leaving them out.