Man, according to Kenneth Burke, is ‘the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-mis-using) animal … separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making’. (Burke, K. (1966). Language As Symbolic Action. Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 16.) It is a preoccupation with this making, with the fruits of this (mis-)using and with the nature of the separation that they incur, that animates Mary-Jane Newton’s first collection of poetry. Much of the variety in OF SYMBOLS MISUSED is touched by man’s existential dilemma as a self-conscious being obliged to live his sunniest moments in the shadow of death and construct meaning in the maw of absurdity. Engaging with this dilemma, Newton shows an exultance with words and a commitment to exploring the elucidations and complications engendered by words as the primary tools of man’s sometimes puny, sometimes magnificent, efforts to tell a story about himself.
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