Northern Prospects: An Anthology of Northeastern Ontario Poetry

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

From Hearst to Gravenhurst, Wawa to Mattowa, and north to James Bay is
the geographical region that this anthology draws from. It’s
definitely not the poetry of Toronto’s urban sophisticates. As the
editor (showing feistiness and a little defensiveness) writes in his
introduction, “[W] here is it written that, to be any good, poets must
be born or live on Yonge Street.”

As one might expect, the collection is varied as to form, content, and
quality. A lot of the work is given over to local description, local
history, and personal anecdote. Thankfully, this is not a volume
dedicated to local boosterism or vanity publishing; a surprising number
of the poems are about people and places elsewhere.

Three of the writers deserve special mention. Lorraine Janzen does a
fine job of mingling local history with personal anecdote. She has a
sure voice and is a poet who is obviously at home in, though not
complacent about, her life and her place in the world. Laurie Kruk’s
“Charlie and Elsie,” a narrative about her grandparents’ lives and
battles, is an homage and a critique worthy of Al Purdy, the godfather
of Ontario (non-Toronto) regionalism. Also noteworthy is Tom Gerry’s
“Navy Hall, Niagara River, May 30, 1995,” a fine melding of
historical and contemporary analysis.