Many of the poems [in A Book of Newfoundland Verse] reflected the local tradition; and the general effect that the book produces when read today is, that in essentials it belonged to the Canadian school then in possession. Nature is the chief theme; the predominant mood is late romantic; the experiments in verse-structure, although interesting, are never radical; there is no single strong personality shaping the whole, instead Pratt assumes a variety of points of view without much relation between any of them…. The collection contains a few narratives, or fragments of narrative; but these are far from being the best things in it, slow in pace, and rather ponderous in diction…. Newfoundland Verse is the work of a poet who has not yet come to grips with himself, although Pratt was forty years old when it came out: it is the work of an experimenter who is...