Phoenix Time

Shannon Hengen is an assistant professor of English at Laurentian
University and the author of Margaret Atwood’s Power: Mirrors,
Reflections and Images in Select Fiction and Poetry.

The theme of shapeshifting in this collection is counterbalanced by
several frankly despairing poems on the death of a friend. The poet’s
belief in a cyclical, mythic pattern wherein all recurs seems more
tenable when related to distant people and things than to the known
friend.

In Kirkwood’s poems the manifestation of past and future in the
present is a recurring motif that, if not new, is still pleasing.
Kirkwood’s technique, like the recurring motif, is conventional but
also mature, appealing, and usually effective. Metaphor is her main
trope, but in “August,” for example, the comparison seems almost too
literal: “pristine shastas have dwindled darkened / peonies mere
memories of scarlet / ... You talk about friends what are friends? / you
say / like willow trees in a drought / they fall away.”

Much sensual imagery and thought fill these poems. They are most
satisfying to read when, as is often true, the subject matter seems
suited to the brief lyric. “Rushing the Season” at 25 lines, one of
the longest poems in the volume effectively compares an eagerness for
spring with an environmental concern. On the other hand, the subject can
seem overbearing for this form; in “Fragment,” for instance, Joyce
and Vico are compressed into 13 short lines ending with a reference to
God.

A greater playfulness would have lightened the too-heavy burden of some
of these poems. That the reader at times wants more from them is an
indication of their beauty and strength.