Difficult Magic

Bob Lincoln is Director of Acquisitions at the University of Manitoba
Libraries.

Martin Singleton writes poetry that pulls you along like a big dog on a short leash. In his case, this dog knows its master, and follows although it leads. The impressions of Difficult Magic are tightly controlled: a spare honesty, a delicate sense of timing and line, and the ever-present fear that the words may betray him and escape. The focus of these poems shifts; outwardly Singleton may be describing a swimmer, or a child, but the essence is to sift the details of life, to examine the forces, to feel the effects. The poems that refer to the act of writing are also exact. Singleton has shown in this collection the rare balance of being able to pause, digress, make the allusion to his craft, and then continue on in the rhythms of the poem without losing sense or direction. These poems are a pleasure to read. The humour is there, and so is the blunt, deliberate truth. It is well-paced writing, careful and rich; not a surfeit, but a feast that you remember and taste.