Marine Snow

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

The title of this book reveals something of Karen MacCormack’s
approach to poetry: apparently contradictory terms are juxtaposed. Her
work has an affinity to the Language Poetry movement. The
representational qualities of language—its ability to convey meanings
in a normal way—are relegated to the background, and its sheer
materiality—words as words—is foregrounded. The result is a poetry
that contains striking phrases, but little that most readers would find
meaningful. The poems sometimes appear to invite interpretation, but on
closer examination are quite stand-offish (or put-offish). Such poetry
has a readership, certainly; it just isn’t what one thinks of as
poetry. Which is probably this poet’s point—she doubtless wants us
to think about poetry, about meaning, and in new terms. The problem is
that so much poetry of this kind seems interchangeable.