How nice it was to read some beautiful rhyming poetry again. Carl Muller has showed us that he can write in rhyme for every mood. But while some poems are brilliant, I found much sadness in his poems that are written with a great sense of loss.
There were tears in my eyes when I read “Remembering Destry”: truly a father’s words of love and, in a way, a confession of inadequacy:
So little did I do for you, my son,
I struggled for success and almost lost,
No wealth to give you, only secret love,
And sadness when upon my bed I tossed
All I could do was prove myself with skill,
And sacrifice to literary art,
You shared our roof, our bread, our walking hours,
Your smiles, your laughter of our lives a part
Somehow, there are many returns to this mood, as if Muller is helpless. He can’t take away the memory of his dead son.
But his sense of humour has not left him either, although no one can see the bold, airy writing of his trilogy. There is something mellower, more mature and a kind of submission to fate.
The old boisterousness that marked his earlier work seems to have been sacrificed for something deeper that now possesses him.
This book, “A Return to Rhyme and Other Lines” is something that can be read with relish. I enjoyed his previous offering of poems, “Propitiations” and “A Bedlam of Persuasions”, but this book is special. The poems not only reflect the keenness of his observations but also draw us along with him.
Now he has surely taken his place among the leading poets of this country, and he has achieved this his way.
Long years ago, when my mother would collect her “Woman & Home” Magazines, I would eagerly search for the little poems written by Patience Strong. Muller, with his fluid style, has brought these poems back to my mind. I offer him my thanks and best wishes.
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