Carbon Filter

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.

This slim book comprises short poems in three numbered sections,
dedicated “in song and friendship” to named contemporaries in the
poet’s world. In the main, they are variously allusive, lighthearted,
and sometimes just plain fun. Rhyme comes easily to Seymour Mayne, an
accomplished linguist. (He has published 16 books, including three in
Hebrew.) For the cognoscenti, his poems will have immediate relevance
and will occasion much delight. For the general reader, however, it is
not jesting couplets in “Gerald’s Little Lament,” that will
appeal, but rather the poignant “Last Photo: February 23, 1942,” in
memory of Stefan Zweig, whose fate was that of so many in World War II.
Mayne has a way with words in this fine collection, “tremulous ruffle
of wings” being particularly evocative. He graciously acknowledges
that many of the poems in Carbon Filter have been published previously
in journals.