Mining for Sun

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

It is appropriate that John Reibetanz often describes fine
craftsmanship: his beautifully and intricately formed poems show such
craftsmanship, especially in their intricate stanzas and the skill with
which they are fitted together in the whole poem.

In “A Canoe for Tim,” one of several poems that deal with wooden
objects and woodworking, Reibetanz uses the image of canoe-making to
make important and moving statements about Native Canadian culture. He
also praises art that transcends craftsmanship, especially the work of
painters. His poems about Turner, Constable, and Vermeer are, as Samuel
Johnson said concerning some of Milton’s shorter poems, “noble works
of the imagination.”

The reach of Reibetanz’s poems is wide and confident. He can write
with dexterity about domestic emotions, about Inuit throat singers,
about the Spanish conquistadors, about the Ontario landscape, about
Toronto streets. These are poems of moral concern rather than
didacticism. They also show and encourage delight in the visible world.
The evocation of light—in paintings, in landscapes—has always been
one of Reibetanz’s strengths. A poet this good belongs in the first
rank of Canadian writers.