Erin Mouré Critical Essay | Critical Review by A. F. Moritz

SOURCE: "Lines from the Junction," in Books in Canada, Vol. 8, No. 3, March, 1979, pp. 16-17.

Moritz is a Canadian author, translator, film critic, and editor. Below, he favorably assesses Mouré's "sharply observed images of urban and industrial life" in Empire, York Street.

Erin Mouré's first book gives us a poet in struggle with "the god of this world seen / in a green ditch beside / a railway siding." These poems set out to acknowledge the full dehumanizing weight of the world and still win affirmation. And affirmation does occur—infrequent, frail, threatened as perhaps it must be, yet powerful, because poetic strength assures us that it is real and achieved, not merely asserted.

A nervous energy of language, fresh and gripping phrases, sharply observed images of urban and industrial life—these are the most immediately striking features of Empire, York Street. Mouré is capable of nature imagery and simple...
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