Desmond Pacey

This booklet is the third in a series published by Jay Macpherson, of which the first two items were Five Poems, 1954, by Daryl Hine, and O Earth Return, by Miss Macpherson herself.

Mr Irving Layton is certainly the most prolific of modern Canadian poets - he now has eight volumes to his credit - and in many ways he is the most powerful.

Admirers of A. J. M. Smith's first book of poems, News of the Phoenix (1943), have been eagerly awaiting his second.

Poems by Mr Purdy have been appearing regularly for years now in such magazines as the Canadian Forum and The Canadian Poetry Magazine, and it is good to see his work embodied in the more permanent and accessible form of a chapbook.

I have mixed feelings about this anthology.

As a poet, Earle Birney has always interested and sometimes exalted me; as a novelist he intermittently amused me; but as an anthologist he exasperates me.

This chapbook of poetry has not received from Canadian reviewers the recognition which it deserves.

April's burst the bonds of March

No sedative can soothe the heart

Do not saw the air so, Mr. Bauer