A TOAST TO BALDY RED: BACK PORCH BALLADS AND PARLOUR POEMS Edited by Sid Holt and George W. Lyon Edmonton, NeWest Press, 1991. 164pp, paper, $12.95 ISBN 0-920897-94-0. CIP Grades 9 and up/Ages 14 and up Reviewed by Pat Bolger. Volume 19 Number 6 1991 November Baldy Red of the title, well known in the Peace River Valley fifty years ago, is only one of the larger-than-life charac­ters who appear in these seventy-five vernacular poems from Alberta, The editors have mined newspaper files, local histories and self-published collections for poems about homesteading, ranching, oil drilling, hard times and politics. Printed as they were found, some of the poems are poorly spelled and punctuated, and a few reveal, as the editors admit in the introduction, disturbing aspects like cruelty and racism (the latter in expres­sions like "Irish Jew"). Appendices provide some notes on the poems, brief information about most of the writers, and an extensive bibliography. Some of the poets here can be praised only for their good intentions: "It was gas caused the explosion/Which is feared in every coal mine..."; others reveal familiarity with Kipling and Service in well-constructed rhythmic verse, and a few, such as Sara E. Johnson in "One Wish," provide flashes of sardonic humour. Baldy Red will be well used in the high school libraries in the prairie provinces, and it can certainly be recommended in schools elsewhere for the insight it offers into the nature and needs of that part of the country. Pat Bolger, Renfrew, Ont.