East End Poems

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

Southwestern Ontario poet Barry Butson has been published in literary
magazines in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
and Canada. He has credits to spare; the British periodicals that are
not mentioned in the above list are as impressive as the ones that are.

This collection combines familiar small-town realism in an unfamiliar
setting—Stratford, Ontario, best known for its drama festival.
Butson’s neighborhood is the East End, an outlying industrial/rural
district. He is a sentimental critic who catalogues the cruelties of a
“Dark, Savage Little World,” but celebrates its picaresque
possibilities in “East End.”

He boldly courts trouble. In “Other Men Would Cry For,” Butson
refers to his late father’s employer as “Swift’s, the poultry
Auschwitz.” This creates the false impression that he is an Animal
Liberation Front–type militant or a Holocaust trivializer. He accepts
the fact that ferrets are set on henhouse rats and that his family
slaughtered their chickens. His honest examination of social problems
suggests that he would not dismiss the Holocaust.

Butson, a high-school teacher, discovers other hard truths when he asks
his students to write essays about “Losing the Early Heroes.” One
girl, raped at 11 by a trusted family friend, now views all males as
potential predators—including him. Another cycle of abuse: reality
hits the poet, the poet slaps the reader.

The working poet tries to short-circuit his critics. In “Squeezin It
Out,” he challenges judgmental editors by pointing out that he has
little time to hone his craft—a theme that resonates with busy
readers. However, such an appeal may backfire if the rest of his book
fails to reach his audience.