CM Magazine: Hearthedral: a Folk-Hermetic.

________________ CM . . . . Volume V Number 2 . . . . September 18, 1998

Hearthedral: a Folk-Hermetic.

Phil Hall.
London, ON: Brick Books, 1996.
103 pp, paperback, $12.95.
ISBN 0-919626-87-4.

Adult.
Review by Willa Walsh.

**1/2 /4

excerpt:

The pibroch opens
with an urlar or ground;
continues with a siabhal
or a 'moving' of the figuration;
flows into a taorluath
or a sequence of variations;
and culminates in a crunluath
or 'crown'

This collection of poems would be largely inaccessible to most high school students. The strange vocabulary, with the intentionally misspelled words and combinations of words would need an extensive glossary to illuminate the meaning. It is similar to reading Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. Newly coined words, such as "squalled furbs" and "helexi" (p. 95), abtruse metaphors, esoteric references and obscure diagrams, along with cryptic bits of word-poems, add to the complexity.

Some poems are more explicit (p. 25). Some are very funny with their unexpected comments on life, e.g. "cakewalking thru' the universe" (p. 42) and "the optimism of AM radio" (p. 55). Many are irreverent and graphic. Words are thrown together like a collage or arranged in lists - juxtaposed to give meaning or perhaps, no meaning. These are adult poems and require sophisticated readers. "whatever words meant has filigreed & transmutated" (p. 83). So true!

Recommended for academic libraries.

Willa Walsh is Senior Editor of the BCTLA's Bookmark and a teacher-librarian at McNair School in Richmond, B.C.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - SEPTEMBER 18, 1998.