Octaves of Narcissus

Mary Jane Starr was with the National Library of Canada in Ottawa.

Octaves of Narcissus is Elizabeth Harper’s second volume of poetry, containing over 40 short poems and one longer work, “Sea Structures.”

In these poems, Ms. Harper describes contemporary life — birthing, parenting, social responsibility, urban living — through vignettes that are replete with musical and religious imagery. Oddly, this imagery, which tends to be very formal, is unsuccessful in conveying meaning in poems that are deliberately mood-scenes or impressionistic. Images such as “humiliated melodies in an abandoned key,” “pentatonic prairie,” and “our soft appoggiaturas” are hyperbolic, although the overwhelming effect is mitigated by the poet’s trained musical ear, which is detectable in the line breaks and rhythms. The religious imagery, drawn from Christianity and Greek mythology, is too overt and self-conscious for the poems to achieve any sense of transcendence.

The book is designed well, has an attractive cover, and is printed on high quality paper. Ms. Harper’s poetry is carefully crafted and a few poems do coalesce so that meaning is quite powerfully and incisively rendered. Overall, though, this is a fairly muddled collection bogged down in baroque imagery that unfortunately smothers a fine sensibility.