Things Unsaid

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Bernice Lever (Farrar), former vice-president of the League of Canadian
Poets, is best-known as the editor of the 1970s and 1980s literary
magazine Waves. She is establishing her position as a poet with Things
Unsaid, a volume of emotionally charged verse.

The book covers a wide range of topics, from child sexual abuse to
Texas downpours. Although her verse is intensely personal, she can focus
her emotions with sardonic perceptiveness. In “Inconvenient,” she
examines the plight of an unwanted elderly mother, sharply noting how
her grown children have cast her out of their lives. In “Avoiding
AIDS,” she examines the uses of masturbation, observing that “God
loves those who love themselves.”

Things Unsaid gets its “edge” from the verses that deal with sexual
abuse. Such poems as “Things Unsaid” and “It’s So Hard to Hurt
the Dead” explore the nature of the problem, validating its victims
and enlightening the rest. To the former, these works may place the book
beyond criticism—few judge a working lifeline’s aesthetic qualities.
However, this book possesses heart, relevance, and wisdom—assets that
enable it to stand on its own merits.