Taking the Breath Away

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.

There is a strong sense of place in these poems, but of place in a
mythic sense—there is more than meets one’s empiric eye. This mythic
cast to the vision is created in diverse ways. The generic powerfully
asserts itself, as in “The walls here hold up the roof / which holds
up the sky.” Particular myths or legendary beliefs are referred to, as
in the poems about places in Germany. A third way of reprising of the
mythic lies in the use of surrealistic imagery, as in “the hands of
the men smell like the moon.” Rhenisch uses such imagery—metaphor
pressed to the extreme—to elicit the mystery, vitality, and ingenuity
of things. These are poems that will repay careful study, but that
sometimes require a wide knowledge of the Western canon of English
literature. Even then, the reader needs to be able to tolerate (and
perhaps, eventually, enjoy) extreme figures—as, for instance, in the
paradox of “the sun is not something you can see / it is everything
you cannot see in the world.” In sum, Harold Rhenisch is very much the
scholar’s poet.