SOURCE: Rae, Ian. “Flights of Verse.” Canadian Literature, no. 169 (summer 2001): 185-87.

In the following review, Rae characterizes Autobiography of Red as a contemporary Canadian long poem.

Bolder Flights represents the latest contribution to an ongoing critical enterprise that articulates why, as Michael Ondaatje stated thirty years ago; “the most interesting writing being done by poets today can be found within the structure of the long poem” (The Long Poem Anthology). Editors Frank Tierney and Angela Robbeson follow a strain of critical thought through Dorothy Livesay, Michael Ondaatje and others that sees “the long poem as distinctively Canadian in its documentary aspects, often serving a topographical and memorial function.” While the notion of a “distinctly Canadian” genre is disputed by one contributor (Margot Kaminski) and has been the target of parody from long poem writers such as George Bowering (in The New Long Poem Anthology), Bolder Flights nonetheless addresses...