Four Ways of Dealing with Bullies

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.

The poems in Richard Lemm’s fourth collection are personal, anecdotal,
sometimes surprising, and always interesting. His technique is to
present a scenario rather than a story, highlighting significant details
and leaving the reader to fill in the gaps.

A master of parody on occasion, Lemm is a scholar-poet as well, as his
references to other cultures and places reveal. He is also no mean
linguist: words such as “cryogenic,” “microbiotic,”’ and
“semicologist” may send more than one reader back to the dictionary.
He excels in using the succinct phrase, as in “knee-capping steep”
or the sensual “fingers combing / Mozart for piano keys.” And he is
skilled at adapting form to mood. In “After Dinner Conversation,”
for example, he uses run-on sentences to achieve an impressionistic
overlay of voices at an academic conference. The odd scatological
vulgarism will offend some readers, but all in all this is a
good-humored book for one’s bedside table.