Tossed Like Weeds from the Garden

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.

“Home is where we start from,” T.S. Eliot once wrote. It is to home
on Prince Edward Island, where he grew up, that Hugh MacDonald’s
thoughts return time and again. His poems are engagingly frank, personal
experiences: sometimes “of the earth earthy” as in “Outhouse”
(such euphemisms!), sometimes of adolescent love as in “Fourteen.”
His poems often have a local setting, as in “Sanctus,” “When You
Look At Her,” or the poignant “My Mother’s Last Words.” He
brings country wisdom to “Island Life” and “Freshening.” Many an
adult reader will be able to relate to “The Inheritance of Scars”
and “In a Conch Shell.”

MacDonald has a true poet’s eye for an image: the “locomotive
roar” of the chimney fire, the “ant trail of flashing aircraft” at
night. Prince Edward Island is fortunate in having this storytelling
poet. His book should find a place in all public libraries.