Black Ice

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

Barry Butson’s style is racy and conversational as he captures life in
the downtown working class. He is a man of many moods. In
“Forgiveness,” he adopts a mock serious stance. “Excursion”
vividly describes a boy’s day outing. There is poignancy and pathos in
“That’s Why She Never Wears Green.” Elsewhere Butson has a sharp
eye for detail and a sharper tongue, as in “all men of the pool are
sharks.” He is sparing in his use of metaphors, but sometimes they
resonate, as in “an older man in a Sunday warm bed.” One poem,
“Green Addicts,” is in the very best imagist tradition—short,
succinct, meaningful.

Barry Butson is no bumpkin; his passing references to Pascal and D.H.
Lawrence, among others, may indicate his own wider reading. Perhaps
regrettably, he lets fall a vulgarism on occasion, presumably to convey
local color. All in all, readers may relish Butson’s commentary on how
“the other half” of the world lives.