In No Small Part

The latest from A. F. Moritz, a slim volume of seventy short poems, takes its title from a formally imperfect sonnet. “The Wren” prioritizes description over action, its volta being the appearance of a small bird. Moritz has won such accolades as the Griffin Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and three of his books have been finalists for a Governor General’s Award. As expected, his use of language here is precise; his form, deliberate.

The sonnet begins in early spring with “a red oak” that is “starting a life,” while “tremoring in chill gusts.” Other trees are nearby: an alder, a green ash, and a “skinny” elm. None are old: “their sky-destined tops” barely reach above the “short thick stems” of grass. Toward the end, Moritz describes the young greenery as a “doll forest.” These branches are no more than “two feet tall.” This is no sublime Canadian landscape. Moritz is not Tom Thomson painting his death in Algonquin Park nor Emily Carr with her...