Altar of the Seasons

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the author of Calling Texas and Earth Prime.

Denburg’s poems fall into three categories: travel poems, poems about
his Jewish faith, and love poems. The poems about his faith are the most
interesting. They give a sense of ritual and strong feeling, whereas the
travel poems are often mere notations, and the poems about romance have
rather soft diction. This is a poet who likes words like “ancient”
and “infinite,” and—to take examples from one poem—phrases like
“azure clarity,” “staccatos of hope,” and “winds of desire.”
A sharper diction is needed to deal with idealized emotions; otherwise,
the poems tend to evaporate. A poem like “Nineveh,” one of his best,
shows more precision in imagery and metaphor. Denburg’s scientific and
medical training doesn’t come through in the poems; he is overlooking
a rich source of diction. In one poem he speaks of “our wondrous
universe”; he needs to find the words to give us a sense of the wonder
of things.