Tree of Life: Poetic Diary; Selected Poems and Thoughts

David A. Kent teaches English at Centennial College and is the editor of
Christian Poetry in Canada.

George Korey’s Tree of Life: Poetic Diary; Selected Poems and Thoughts is the first of a series of books written by members of Canada’s cultural minorities (in this case, Polish) and published in association with the Canadian Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations. The book itself features photographs and drawings opposite many of the poems, a Foreword by Hédi Bouraoui, an Introduction by Elizabeth Sabiston, a Biographical Note by Yvonne Bogorya, a page of epigraphs, and two pages of selected comments by reviewers here and overseas (these spill over onto the back cover of the book). Tree of Life is essentially a “selected writings” comprised mostly of poems from previously published volumes. There are six major divisions of poems in the book (chronologically ordered), followed by a large section of epigrammatic “thoughts.” Despite being composed over a period of about 45 years, the poems have an unfortunate quality of sameness about them. They are almost exclusively descriptions of moments in nature (especially evenings), and only occasionally does a striking perception or apt metaphor arrest the reader’s attention: e.g., “Instead / of Christmas tree candles / God has lighted / stars in the heavens” (“Christmas Eve in Bangkok”) or the poignant “Mother’s Day Letter 1982.” Because Korey seldom ventures, his poems are too restrained. Any suggestions of suffering are usually suppressed under the covering of Romantic nostalgia or of confident assertions about the future (e.g., “when you think / that all is lost / remember / the future still lies before us” in “A Letter Stopped By The Censor”). The descriptions are often effective but too often self-consciously poetical: e.g., “I gather like flowers / the breath of this hour / to describe the attraction poetically” (“Flight over the Andes”). Korey’s aphoristic utterances are probably the most enjoyable part of the book (prose being more portable than poetry in terms of translation). They are frequently witty and full of experienced insight (e.g., “Matrimony is the first union to defy management” or “What you came from is a matter of genetics; what you become is a matter of politics”). And yet, here again the reader will encounter the commonplace and even the sometimes sexist remark (e.g., “The inventiveness of women to find boring pastimes for their husbands is unlimited”). In short, the book’s elaborate apparatus promises too much for the relatively modest successes we actually (and anti-climactically) find in the volume.