Clay Birds

Sheila Martindale is poetry editor of Canadian Author and Bookman and
the author of No Greater Love.

The themes that run through this first collection of poems are darkness,
cold, remembered pain, and dreams about wings. An atmosphere of menace
lurks, like the meaning of the poems, just below the surface. While many
of the pieces are obscure, they are nonetheless quite powerful. The poet
evokes the hot, dry summers and long cold winters of the Saskatchewan
prairie: “cold sleeps in its home of stone” and “lust stretching
its thistles through dust / purple and bristling.” Many of the poems
contain hints of past abuse by parents and grandparents. The wings and
feathers imagery appears to represent a need to escape. One of the more
comprehensible poems is “Imaginary Brother,” invented by the poet
during childhood, perhaps as an antidote to unhappiness or loneliness.
The middle section of the book, “Fish Tales,” is written in dialect
and is quite baffling.

Overall, this is a bleak and difficult collection, but it is relieved
here and there by moments of clarity and warmth.