Smoke without Exit

G. Sheldon Fischer was a Toronto-based editor.

As in his previous books, in Smoke without Exit Brett takes phenomena of nature as patterns from which to trace nuances of the meaning of human life. This is effectively done in “Children without Wings,” where the narrator, from his literal “bird’s eye view,” says of newly “hatched” humans:

The others weren’t children

only the absence of flight,

the possibility of life everywhere

going nowhere.

The crustacean predators in “The Crabs under Second Narrows Bridge,” feasting on men who fell in a construction accident, remind the reader of the philosophizing gravedigger in Hamlet and the sardonic repartee concerning worms that feed on kings.

In several poems the poet dons the prophet’s cloak and looks into the future. It is interesting to note that without ever touching on the themes of urban life, politics, or ecology, the author nevertheless expresses a sombre, even pessimistic vision. The poems are sometimes touched with puzzlement or irony; they are never consciously light-hearted.

This collection seems to represent a turning point in the author’s life, for a number of pieces circle the theme of things past. Meteors, those “balls of burning metal and stone” that flash for a moment at the corner of the eye, remind him of old haunts, old habits, old friends — “strange travellers on a railroad /to the stars — forever gone.”

Because the imagery is intentionally limited in scope, it is sometimes predictable; and awkward figures are forced to yield significance not really there. The poems could also have been grouped more logically around thematic similarities. Nevertheless, the book is engaging reading. It comes with an attractive jacket and a reasonable price.