Hats Off to the Sun

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of education at the University of
Prince Edward Island.

George Whipple’s latest collection is one of many moods. It is
variously joyful, tender, sensuous, and sad, but always sustained by a
deep spirituality—more specifically, Christian hope and faith
(“Thanksgiving” and “Vigil” are good examples of this). He has a
great power of phrase, and some of his metaphors are strikingly original
(“anorexic tulips;” “Brontosaurus snow;” “the year is
haemorrhaging”). The wide range of titles for his poems reflects his
own scholarly background and his penchant for matching shapes to themes.
Some of these are drawn from nature, as in “Fjords” and “Seven
Swans a-Swimming”; others, such as “The Conspiracy of the Sub-atomic
Particles,” have a more sinister image. Some of these poems have
previously appeared in journals, but there is still a wholeness about
this collection, which is neatly divided into sections,
liturgical-fashion. The cover design is colorful, if somewhat ambiguous.