Inlets of the Heart

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of education at the University of
Prince Edward Island and honorary chief of the Mi’kmaq of Prince
Edward Island.

“Calling up dated memories” is what this book is all about.
Peach’s poems begin with his earliest childhood, continue through a
life’s vocation, and return eventually to a “peace deep as blessed
assurance” on Cape Breton Island. The poet’s style is by turns
humorous, plangent, and moralistic. He writes with affectionate
nostalgia of the small village school he attended as a boy. He has a
gift for the arresting phrase, as in “fidgety sea,” “rum-drenched
laughter,” “guts like sofa-stuffing,” and “broken-winged
society.” The brief prose sketch of his father is excellent, as is his
poem “For my mother.” Inlets of the Heart deserves a place in school
and public libraries.