The Lace Volcano

Carolyn Hlus was a lecturer in English literature at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.

The Lace Volcano is a pot-pourri of verse arranged quasi-structurally under the subsections “Summer,” “Autumn,” “Winter,” and “Spring.” Although the content of poems relates, at least to some degree, to the subdivisions in which they appear, the book is generally incohesive and lacking in unity. Seasonal classification fails to cement free and blank verse with more formally designed poems. Furthermore, there appears to be no justification for the collection’s title. Unfortunately, these poems read like the ongoing, unedited output of a creative writing class pressed to produce or fail. Given careful editorial scrutiny, both individual poems and the collection as a whole might have been a humourous and sensitive exploration of everyday life. As it stands, it is a cookbook of poems, spiralbound in traditional cookbook fashion.