Passage of summer,: Selected poems

by Elizabeth Brewster

129 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1969

About the author

Elizabeth Winifred Brewster was a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. She published over two dozen books, the majority of which are collections of poetry, and received numerous awards for her work. Characterized by her plain-spoken, poignant style, Brewster’s writing has become an important part of Canada’s literary canon.

Reviews

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't decide how I feel about Passage of Summer. It's different from her other works—in hindsight, I should've read them chronologically—but I'm not sure whether or not this is a good thing. Many of the poems in this collection use rhymes, which is unusually formal for Brewster. There are a few sonnets, some poems with consistent rhyme schemes, and some poems with inconsistent rhyme schemes, along with some free verse. The rhymes are hit-or-miss; for every brilliant rhyme there's a weak rhyme, bad meter, or a bad slant rhyme. Objectively speaking, Lillooet: a Canadian Village is the most impressive poem, but I didn't like it. This twenty-page rhyming narrative describes the characters you would expect to find in small town Canada (oh, but the first two pages are useless blathering about how she needs to decide what subject is worthy of such an epic poem). I also didn't care for the Devotions section which was too religious for my liking. Elegies is the best section of the book. I admire how Brewster has such a matter-of-fact way of discussing death. After reading five of Brewster's books, I think it's fair for me to say that her poetry isn't for me. It's too bland and prosaic, and even her better poems are nothing spectacular.

Poems that I liked:
"Star Bright," "Starlings," "Pastoral," "I Have Seen Flowers Growing," "Passage of Summer," "October Wind," "Local Graveyard," "Argument," "The Oarsman," "London Fog," "Keats at Rome," "Afternoon Snow," "Summer Sadness."

=13/132 (9.8%) poems that I liked.