Jacob Alvarado

Michael E. Casteels, Frontenac, Autumnal Hymns.

Kingston: Puddles of Sky Press, 2022. $5.00.

Inspired by a four-day hike through the titular provincial park, Frontenac, Autumnal Hymns is a collection of poetic snapshots that captures the simple beauties, changing seasons, and physical sensations of Ontario’s flora and fauna. In one of several unnamed poems, lines like “Stone exists millennia / of hardship and resilience / dense to its own passage / through unimagined time” demonstrate a reverential attitude towards nature that glorifies the commonplace through amplifying its inherent qualities (in this instance, the age of stone). However, while Frontenac certainly maintains a sense of wonder regarding nature, it finds its true magic in the connections it makes between the natural world and Casteels’s human perspective. Whether referencing specific anecdotes (“The young pup and I / stopped in the clearing / where the old dog and I / had stopped for a while”), or using short lines to evoke the pitter-patter of rain (“all I / heard / was the / rain / on the / roof / of my / tent”), Frontenac seems most interested in using sparsity and specificity to transport readers into an atmosphere that, for all its references to Casteels’s specific perception, takes on a life of its own in the mind of the individual. In a deeply affecting transmutation of experience to words, Frontenac, Autumnal Hymns is a contemplative, tactile collection that invites its readers to pause, breathe, and enjoy.

JACOB ALVARADO

is the editorial intern for The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing and a 4th-year student in the Creative Writing & Publishing program at Sheridan College. He lives and writes in Orangeville, Ontario.