THE PRAIRIE JOURNAL OF CANADIAN LITERATURE #13 — VOICES FROM EARTH: SELECTED POEMS Distributed by Canadian Magazine Publishers Association, 2 Stewart St., Toronto, Ont. M5V1H6 52pp, paper, $4.00, ISBN 0-920689-08-6. CIP Adult Reviewed by Don Precosky. Volume 18 Number 6 1990 November Voices from Earth consists of short selections of about twenty pages each from the poetry of Ronald Kurt and Mark McCawley, two Edmonton writers. As the title suggests, nature and man's relationship with the natural world are highlighted. Frankly, I was not impressed by either writer. Neither appears well versed in his craft. Both seem cursed with tin ears. Their writings look like modern open form poems, but they sound and read like the offerings of someone who hasn't quite understood the theory underlying the form — someone who has read, but not quite heard, the works of more accom­plished writers. There are awkward line breaks and unimaginative vocabulary and imagery. The following excerpt from Kurt is typical of the stumbling ugliness of both writers: Singing about forests in a tiny city room A vision and a tree is suddenly beside me The passage is also typical of the wishy washy one-with-nature mysticism they affect. The title of the book may carry an allusion to Bliss Carman, but even on a bad day he would not have produced such stuff. Don Precosky, College of New Caledonia, Prince George, B.C.