sewn paper
Poetry
1982
92 pages
ISBN 0-88984-070-9
$6.95
A Steady Hand
Mike Doyle
`Mike Doyle's latest book, A Steady Hand, begins with a quotation
from Joe Rosenblatt: "Last night I dreamt I had a beautiful hand". The hand
becomes a metaphor for the creative process, one which for Doyle is a derivative but still a creative
position. For this collection is, above all, controlled -- controlled in its language,
its sources, its preoccupation with fact and organization. In "Adam at Evening", Doyle sees himself
as a cataloguer, a poet who gives "a name, a gift, to each animal". This idea becomes a controlling
fiction throughout the poem, though the poet admits at the end that "In the eyes / of my
named animals I see / gathering darkness".' `Mike Doyle's collection A Steady Hand takes shape
in dialogue with the texts of other poets and artists (for example,
Anna Akhmatova, Max Ernst, Cesar Vellejo, W.S. Merwin), with diaries,
journals, biographies, and pieces by and about painters -- particularly Klee.
A Steady Hand tends to converse internationally. If that sounds
very general, the particularity of this poet's community
is that it is so literary/artistic; it is not easy to assign it
any other sense (e.g., geographic) of community. One gets the strong sense of
language itself being his home and native land.' `A Steady Hand is a good title for Mike Doyle's new collection,
for its outstanding quality is the assurance and accomplishment of the poet's
style. Doyle ranges from surrealist narrative to intimate love-poem, from
loosely adapted translations of European poets to delicate lyrics of
Canadian nature.While some readers may find the writing slightly detached
and "academic", the majority will be impressed by the thorough intelligence
and maturity of Doyle's craft, steeped as it is in the traditions of modernism.
In poems like "Adam at Evening", Doyle shows himself at the height of
his powers.' `Reading "A Strange Hand" is a genuinely moving experience, for Doyle
deftly brings in experience and apprehension while concentrating on the
tiny miracles that occur every day. Some of his poems range into the territory
of allusion, but even when he addresses subjects like Klee and Anna Akhmatova,
he gracefully allows readers into his poems instead of shutting them out.
"The Gloves" is a tour de force in itself and justifies the entire
collection.'
-- Roderick Harvey, Essays on Canadian Writing
-- Laurel Boone, Canadian Literature
-- the Malahat Review
-- Judith Fitzgerald, the Windsor Star
