All the Other Phil Thompsons Are Dead

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.

Any experience of life can be grist to a poet’s mill. So it is with
Phil Thompson, born in 1951, who has lived in Nova Scotia, Alberta, and
the Northwest Territories. In this volume, he reflects on many a
“special moment / captured in memory.” Several poems relate
incidents in his own life, some in those of others, most especially
family and friends. That all-important comment on the human situation is
sometimes encapsulated in the poem itself, sometimes stated more
overtly. One finds pathos in “Stone Cold Baby” and “Mocha”;
sadness in “On the Road Now”; cryptic acidity in “Bureaucrat”; a
love of nature in “Mountains Don’t Pretend” and “Whale Poem.”
His poems have a clear, strong voice and crisp images. He appears before
the reader as a good-humored, compassionate raconteur.