Report on the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Books 12-15,

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

Don’t be fooled by James Doran’s cover art, titled “Check Mate,”
in which he depicts icons Ronald Reagan and Sid Vicious posed with their
respective Nancys. Ken Norris’s gentle, articulate poetry describes
exotic places and defines disturbing times.

Norris views the recent past in a less literary, and more literal,
manner. He is in a unique position to understand his mobile and unstable
era. This New York City native left the United States to become “one
of Montreal’s infamous Vehicule poets” and a Canadian citizen, only
to return as an instructor of Canadian literature and creative writing
at the University of Maine.

Norris expertly sets his level of detachment, maintaining an
appropriately objective distance from his material without suggesting
that it should not be approached at all. His clever selection of topics
ensures accessibility. The tropical themes in “Book 13-Island
Stars,” for example, will attract consumers who cannot afford exotic
winter vacations and seek a literary alternative. The veteran traveler
realizes that Fiji and Tonga only resemble paradise. Some observers note
the physical dangers: storms, insects, diseases, insect-borne diseases,
but Norris alerts readers to psychological perils. He bluntly describes
the subversive effects of “Torpor”: “The mind ... simply empties
out” and notes the grim political reality of “Two military coups”
in “Tourism in Tatters.”

In “Concerto No. 5,” he warns the discontented that, despite
destabilizing domestic reconfigurations, “There’s no going back.
Forget the nostalgia / for women as mute enchained homemakers / and men
as mute enchained providers.” He uses the words “male” and
“rage,” but not as a phrase. This explosive concept is left to the
American media’s thoughtful articles and violent dramas. As for the
poet, he resumes his work, searching for positive emotions.