Trap Lines

Robert Merrett was Professor of English at the University of Alberta.

Trap Lines is the first book of poetry by a song writer and playwright. It is not a large volume; it contains 29 poems arranged in two groups. Its title is one indication of the craftsmanship and intelligence to be found in the poems. The title refers both to the poetic subject, namely, hunters, nature, animals, and trapping, and to the poetic strategies of stealth, shock, and implication which are directed to the reader. Ursell brilliantly matches his subject and strategies, at first employing archaic language and a documentary technique to convey the history of beaver hunting in Canada. By this means he is impersonal and undogmatic about the cruelty, greed, and egoism of hunters. His remote stance depicts very well how alongside obviously base motives in hunters lies the mythic appreciation of animals, an appreciation which irony reveals to contain perversity. In a couple of poems Ursell implicates his persona in this perversity, thereby giving extra force to his criticism of human culpability towards animals. By the end of “Love of Beaver,” the first group of poems, he concentrates on the contemporary debasement of the beaver, a debasement that, while still related to ancient myth about the beaver’s aphrodisiacal properties, is pornographic, and mythical only for satirical purposes. The last poem of this group fancifully presents two beavers reading a magazine bearing their name. They are looking for facts and images concerning themselves. What they find is bare human flesh and sexual posturing. In the image of the beavers theme is an integrity of nature and symbol which powerfully contrasts with images of human futility.

The second group of poems, “The Art of Pulling Hearts,” is more miscellaneous than the first. It concerns either the callousness of hunting or the confrontation with nature which men must suffer if they are to be sensitive humans and to have valuable natural symbols. However, throughout the volume, the poet displays a masterful tone and irony which demands of the reader a most rewarding attention.