The Colour of Flight

James Deahl is a partner in Mekler & Deahl, Publishers, and the author
of Under the Watchful Eye: Poetry and Discourse, Poetry Markets for
Canadians, and Mix Six.

Linda Waybrant’s first collection of poems presents an extremely dark
view of life and of human relationships.

The strongest sections in the book are Father and Beginning from the
Middle of Darkness. In “Father,” the poet chronicles her growing up
in a family defined by anger, booze, cruelty,

and daily humiliations. She is unable to escape from her father even
after his death, when she finds herself trapped mourning a man she
“didn’t want to know.” “Beginning from the Middle of Darkness”
is a long narrative work that con-cludes with a woman being stabbed in
the presence of her young son. Other poems detail how romantic
relationships tend to degrade, disappoint, and ultimately betray the
women involved.

Waybrant establishes herself as a fine confessional poet with this
debut volume. She has a firm grasp of narrative poetics, and there is
hardly a bad line in this book. However, her material is so intensely
personal that the reader ends up feeling excluded, like an eavesdropper
on a private conversation.