The Authority of Roses

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

This book of poems is divided into five sections, each containing a
reference to water and

each illustrated by a 19th-century engraving. On the cover, a stunning
color photograph of a red rose and rosebud reproduces with splendid
clarity tiny waterdrops on petals and leaves. All this is appropriate
for a volume whose representative title poem, “The Authority of
Roses,” is a witty metaphysical meditation on the connections between
natural objects and the human mind.

Ross Leckie is one of a group of younger Canadian poets that includes
Jeffrey Donaldson, A.F. Moritz, and John Reibetanz (each of whom is the
dedicatee of a poem here). In reaction to the spontaneous, confessional
sloppiness of so much contemporary poetry, they are endeavoring to
return to the traditional intellectual bases of verse. Emphasis is
placed on the precise word, the accurate nuance; the eye is focused
firmly on the subject. This is a learned, carefully controlled poetry.
One possible weakness, however, is that intellectual detachment becomes
so evident that the personal voice of the individual poet can be lost.

The subjects of Leckie’s poems are often deeply personal, but the
tone and vocabulary are not. Traditionalism and modernism unite, for the
most part happily. Modern scientific references—“capillary,”
“contact lens,” “micro-processing,” “Xerox machines,”
“chromatism”—blend with age-old poetic allusions to roses, rural
scenery, and the moving waters at their priest-like task.

Individual readers will find their own favorites among these poems. One
of mine is “Mourning Doves,” whose opening lines provide a sample of
Leckie’s quality: “If they had elbows or forearms, they would be
Rodin’s / ‘The Thinker,’ yet they are classified as gamebirds / by
the federal government and thirty-one states.” Leckie can polevault
impressively from thought to thought or metaphor to metaphor, though it
is sometimes difficult to keep up with him. “The Unity of Art and
Experience,” for example, is an extended, mind-expanding, ambitious
poem rich enough to stimulate hours of research into history and
metaphysics. If one perseveres, however, the pleasure and admiration are
both considerable.