POLISH SUBTITLES
By
Daryl Hine is a member of the current bumper crop of promising young Canadian poets, and as he says- ""I have put places and things first; the people second; the great questions, like Religion in a Socialist State and Art and Censorship, last, where they belong"". This introduces a traveler's impressions in Poland where Hine spent a month, ostensibly to ""polish"" the English subtitles for ""a terrible film epic"" which earned him $200.00; and the material for this book. It is a well-constructed piece, impressionistic, elegiac, ironic, elegant in style and despite the author's disclaimer) especially observant about the people--the writers and intellectuals and the diplomatic crowd. He has an admirable knack for catching the elusive breath of actuality in one or two appropriate details. He has no theories to prove; what he gives us is a transparency to which we may apply whatever sort of background we prefer. It was the essential poetic spirit of the place that he was seeking, and his success is as quiet as his prose, and nearly as satisfying. The delicate line drawings by Virgil Burnett are in perfect harmony.