Just Off Main

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

Gary Hyland’s third collection of poems focuses on the world of adolescence as seen through the eyes of six boys in Moose Jaw during the 1950s. Hyland belongs to both the Moose Jaw Movement and Poet’s Combine in southern Saskatchewan. These two local literary organizations are good indications of the vitality of much prairie writing. Just Off Main abounds with vitality — in this case, youthful vitality verging on the obnoxious: a rogue’s gallery of local guys with names like Scrawny, Deke, Bumper, Zip, Magoo, and Fet — all doing normal fifties teenager things. Despite the muscle cars and occasional battles, girls, and beers, these guys seem to be a pretty clean crew, if not proportionately a little more goofy than most: “the yearbook saying / our bumper crop of fun.” Some of the verse is quite clever and, like most of the book, both amusing and fun: “The wind’s a real drag / You get your hair just right ... a shining construction / of brylcreem and water.” Hyland is quite successful in accomplishing what he sets out to do — namely, creating a poetic language for “discussing adolescence.” The language is poetic and, despite its apparent colloquial looseness, crafted extremely well so that most lines move along fluidly to produce the necessary effect of shock or surprise: “tight-sweatered jugs / or wow / those nothing blouses / that pull your eyes out.” One problem with this book, however, is that it is compulsively concerned with adolescent myths and myth-making (i.e., girls, cars, rock ‘n’ roll, school, etc.), and most of these myths are so old hat that they’ve come perilously close to cliché. If you’ve seen “Happy Days” on television, much of this collection will not surprise you. A worth-while collection — not great poetry, but lots of fun. The book is designed well, complete with yearbook pictures.