Benchmark

Michael Williamson was Reference Librarian at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa.

As a first collection, Benchmark attempts to cover too much ground, becoming somewhat diluted by the end. Where the book does succeed, though, is in the poet’s colloquial and stark speech: “the mongrel pain / longing already for this place I i am about to leave.” The somewhat blurred theme of the collection is the particularly modern problem of rootlessness in a country as large and regionally fractious as Canada. There is movement throughout the book: from the old countries of Scotland and Ireland, to the Maritimes, to the Prairies, some dallying on the west coast and finally to Toronto. Mr. Hunter sees himself as the first in his ancestral line to keep moving but with no particular reason; his motion seems to be the result of disaffection with his roots and rejection of his parents’ expectations of him: “that my labouring father / did not agree with my choice / of the arts.” The poet’s influences — as mentioned throughout — seem to be Richard Brautigan, Baudelaire, Gary Snyder, and various others. What emerges from all of the information delivered in this book is a confusing and ultimately disappointing array of themes, styles, and intentions. When the poet tries to write in metaphors and similes, he falls flat; when he veers off into historical poems, there is no continuity. A good editor could have pulled this collection together; as it stands, the book is another first collection with a few hints of promise.