I was delighted with Maggie Helwig's review of Susan Glickman's poetry collection Hide and Seek (May). What I appreciated so much were her comments about the need "for breaking taboos" surrounding the literature of new motherhood.

I, too, have noticed the very sparse literature which addresses the "confusion, fear, and ambiguity" of this experience. So for me to see an article which openly and unashamedly acknowledges these mixed feelings is indeed a pleasure and a relief.

Like Helwig, I believe that "women suffer because of the too simple stories we are given." I certainly did; for over a year I was convinced that my ambivalent feelings were simply evidence of my own incompetence. If I had heard more voices like hers in the early months of my child's life, or even before the pregnancy, I would have spared myself a great deal of self-flagellation. If I had simply expected confusion and angst in the first place, I would not have thought I was Lady Macbeth each time I felt less than pink and dewy. I might have felt, dare I say, normal.

I will certainly be on the lookout on for Maggie Helwig's next volume of poetry, now that she's had her world turned inside out from motherhood.

Stephanie Kripps Vancouver

Maggie Helwig's review of Susan Glickman's Hide and Seek bothered me-and not just because I think that Glickman is a better poet than anyone would guess from reading the review. While Helwig raises a serious concern (namely, that "women suffer because of the too simple stories we are given" about motherhood), the review seems to me skewed and somehow wrongheaded.

Helwig complains that Glickman's poems are "undisturbing"; the book "does not dare to be a dangerous book." She accuses Glickman of pretending to be "uncomplicated", of ignoring the "confusion, fear, and ambiguity" that she insists attend all pregnancies. "Women need dangerous books," she concludes, an assertion that sounds great, but what does it actually mean? In describing the imagery and feeling of Glickman's poems, pejoratively, as "almost Victorian", Helwig betrays her own uncritical acceptance of the aesthetic in currency today-one in which to describe a book as "disturbing" is to praise it.

I am not as convinced as Helwig that this fashion in literature of exposing the murky underside of everything, of commanding attention by "breaking taboos", of equating shock effect with literary power-a fashion kicked off, in women's poetry, by the cultish emulation of Sylvia Plath-is not just the flip side of what Helwig dismisses as "sentiment". The idea that as a woman poet I needs must air my blood-stained linen in public seems to me as false as the idea that I needs must hide it.

I feel that Helwig mistakes for cliché Glickman's choice to deal with the mythical aspects of being pregnant-as the poet herself acknowledges with humour and wonderment: "She has been transformed into a mythic creature before whom even her own knees bend." In her personal anger at the myths, Helwig singles out as "sentiment at its worst" one of the finest poems in Glickman's collection, "The Lost Child", failing to acknowledge (or notice?) its music, the equipoise with which its conceit is sustained and revealed, and the emotional purity made possible by the heightened tone and by couching the experience (of infertility) in a conceit to begin with.

Helwig points out-rightly, I think-that personal footnotes about the quirks of Glickman's infant son don't belong in a book of serious poetry; but by the same token, I could argue that reference to Helwig's own "emotionally rather difficult" pregnancy does not belong in a serious book review. Nor does it seem to me right to give more than one-fifth of the column space (complete with quotations) to another poet whose take on pregnancy conforms better to her own. Helwig has a legitimate axe to grind, but it is more personal and political than it is literary. I feel that in using this review to air it, she fails to address Susan Glickman's poems seriously on their own terms.

Robyn Sarah

Montreal

On Fitzgerald on Brandt

P. Friesen's missive (Letters, June) regarding J. Fitzgerald's review of D. Brandt's Jerusalem, beloved (March) necessitates my contributing the observation that Fitzgerald's "venom" does indeed eloquently and imaginatively tell readers "something about the book in question" since "poison", "self-aggrandizement", and "myopic bias" do not rear their ugly heads in the counter-indictment implied.

C. C. Nolman

Langley, B.C.

P. Friesen's dismissal of Judith Fitzgerald's review of Di Brandt's Jerusalem, beloved prompts me to reply.

I pick up a review of a book of poetry hoping to read about the literary quality of the book, not about sociology or "cultural criticism". Ms. Fitzgerald's review (amply illustrated with examples from the text) states that the book is shallow, uses commonplace imagery, and is poorly structured. In other words, it is badly written. Is a critic now not permitted to say that a book is badly written without being accused of "venom"?

Lenore Langs

Windsor, Ont.

In my opinion, Judith Fitzgerald's review of Di Brandt's Jerusalem, beloved is an astonishingly ugly piece of work by an otherwise occasionally sensitive critic. I can hardly bring myself to call her mixture of diatribe, hatchet job, and character assassination a review. It's so overwritten, it's an unintentional parody of a review. I learn virtually nothing from it about how to read or understand the book. For example, Ms. Fitzgerald accuses Ms. Brandt of using "mass language" in her poetry. I suggest that this is just a pejorative description of Ms. Brandt's skilful use of the vernacular, another reason, along with important subject-matter, why Ms. Brandt's books are popular. One could turn the criticism around and accuse Ms. Fitzgerald of employing "elitist language" in her own poetry, but that argument would be just as useless. No, I don't learn anything about Ms. Brandt's book from this review; I learn far too much concerning the extent to which Ms. Fitzgerald dislikes Ms. Brandt's writing, and that she is willing to employ insult and cliché to make sure the reader notices her distaste. I won't attempt a rebuttal; Ms. Fitzgerald's pronouncements are rants, not arguments. Perhaps she enjoys working herself into a lather, but what is the magazine's justification for printing such drivel?

Andris Taskans

managing editor

Prairie Fire

Winnipeg

Children's Revival

I would like to thank you for the article "Lives for Children" (April). I found Frieda Wishinsky's review of the recently published book Changing the Pattern: The Life of Emily Stowe [Napoleon Publishing] very enlightening. I am pleased to see that Books in Canada is taking a renewed interest in children's books, which have not received as much review coverage as we might have liked. I hope this article marks the beginning of a new trend and that we will see many more reviews of interesting new Canadian books for children.

Brigitte Shapiro

Director, Marketing & Sales

Scholastic Canada Ltd.

Richmond Hill, Ontario

More Credentials, Please

I was struck by the omission of any identification of the background of thirteen of twenty-one reviewers in a recent issue (March). (The other eight had brief bios or were listed in your masthead as editors.)

In considering their comments, it would have been helpful to get some hint as to their credentials to judge where they're coming from.

Harry L. Rachlis

Winnipeg