An Evening Pastiche: In Homage to William Wordsworth

A love of classic English poetry or at least some familiarity with it will serve readers well when diving into this collection which pays homage to 19th-century English romantic poetry with a series of William Wordsworth pastiches that address 21st-century urban living. In wry references to Wordsworths evening walks Ramsey writes of roaming Torontos streets and encountering light pollution skyscrapers graffiti and a woman who reminds him of Ishtar as he asks her to light his cigarette.The author has mastered the tone and dialect of romantic poetry and he uses them to explore quotidian urban matters as familiar to 21st-century readers as daffodils were in Wordsworths day. In The Idle Corner-Boys two young men attempt to prove their manhood by challenging each other to grope women. Seeing a woman already in distress they forfeit their plan of feeling her up and instead help her find her missing brooch. The Sewer and the Maple Leaf has an engaging use of personification as it finds a sewer grate and a maple leaf in an interesting exchange about the maple leafs survival of winter. In The Shepherds Blues stars are hard to see in the city haze but starlets proliferate.Each piece showcases Ramseys knowledge of different poetic styles as he employs couplets triplets free verse and multiple other forms. Theres a seeming paradox in imitating Wordsworths language which was meant to replace florid 18th-century poetry with earthy everyday speech but sounds nearly as fancy to modern ears. However Ramsey blends in plenty of current idiom and the juxtaposition of crack alley with poor hovels or a bus shelter/ Of plexiglass and yellow steel with the whirl-blast of snow is delightful. Readers who know enough about romantic poetry to get the joke will enjoy this witty homage.