SOURCE: "Music in Words," in Canadian Literature, Nos. 122-23, Autumn-Winter, 1989, pp. 143-48.

In the excerpt below, Labrie dismisses many of the poems in Furious as overburdened by Mouré's theoretical considerations, but suggests that a few "certainly repay attention."

Appended to Erin Mouré's Furious are a series of critical observations designed to explain the poetry that precedes them. Displaying an interest, evident among some recent poets, in applying experimental alterations in the structure of language to the writing of poetry and showing some similarity to Gertrude Stein in her use of repetition and incremental variation, Mouré demonstrates an interest in poetic theory that, as in the case of Stein, can lead at times to the triumph of theory over practice. Some of the theorizing, while inconsequential to the reader, is given prominence by the poet in being associated with the title of her collection of poems: "It's...