Distances

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Robin Skelton had established himself as a poet while still in England and, since immigrating to Canada in 1963, has continued a poetic career that was essentially formed elsewhere. As a result, although he has been acknowledged and respected — his thick and impressive Collective Shorter Poems appeared in 1981 — he has tended to be neglected in a country obsessed with the Canadian-ness of Canadian literature. Skelton is a citizen (and poet) of the world, as these poems show clearly, and their level of accomplishment proves that he is a poet whom Canadians need not only to acknowledge but also to celebrate.

Distances is an exciting volume since it demonstrates that, in his sixties, Skelton has been able, while building on the experience of a lifetime, to evolve a fresh and effective style suitable for new insights. He offers a poetry of spare but dazzling simplicity, the kind that appears so easy but is in fact so difficult. As he writes in “Don’t Worry About It”: “I rather like the / easy feel of it, // the unimportant / casual way it moves // on down the page, / not bothering its head // about what people think / or think they think...” These are relaxed but eloquent poems about “unimportant / things that matter.” They are written for the most part in this short, two-line verse-form that proves on examination to be split blank verse that allows for a great deal of variety in emphasis and nuance.

Skelton can write of subjects as sublimely simple as an actual (non-symbolic) rose, a visit to a bird sanctuary, remembering fairy-rings in his childhood, a young man taking off a shoe on the Spanish Steps, seeking and finding the always elusive words. He employs no flamboyant metaphor; the poems are quiet, meditative, but ultimately passionate in their concern for examining and preserving the subtle shades of meaning and vision that arise from a finely tuned consciousness. There is a magnificent lucidity and control here. Distances is the work of a true poet who communicates an authentic wisdom.