The Baker's Wedding

Mark Bastien was a Toronto-based journalist.

The Baker’s Wedding is the first book of poems by Brampton writer Merci Fournier, and it’s a pleasant if inauspicious debut. Born and educated in England, Fournier draws on her British upbringing as inspiration for many of her poems.

The author has a real ability to come up with distinctive images to support her poems, which have a floaty, airy quality that is charming but somewhat unsatisfying. They are, for the most part, well crafted and clearly thought out, but they are never striking. The “black eye of night” descends, a photograph has “ghostly overtones,” and trains are “black corpses.” Fournier is not demanding of herself or her reader. She uses workmanlike images that are effective but not very interesting. The reader is trapped in a world of widow’s weeds, brocade, and willows.

The title poem of this collection, however, is clever and winning. The baker, with his bride under his arm, kisses his fingers and “donuts leap from his eyes.”

It is unfortunate there are not more tasty pastries in this slim collection.