Coming on the heels of Always Now, the monumental three-volume edition of Margaret Avison’s collected works, and the awarding of the 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize to her previous collection, Concrete and Wild Carrot, the bar has been set forbiddingly high for new work from the octogenarian Toronto poet.

Avison’s language in Momentary Dark is as daring as ever, firmly based in the vernacular but subtly bending and co-opting both conventions and readerly expectations. Portmanteaus and neologisms abound, offering sudden moments of sharp clarity that no other existing word would provide in quite the same way, creating razor-sharp insights and revelations out of language itself. Even her constructions, which seem straightforward and plainspoken, open up to reveal unexpected depths. There is a deeply spiritual tone to many of the poems here. Transience and transcendence are recurrent themes, rooted in close observation of nature and urban life, in harmony and contrast with one another. There are poems here that startle and humble with their simultaneous immediacy and seemingly timeless veracity.

Impressive as it is overall, Momentary Dark occasionally finds Avison’s language flabby, her insights thematically obvious. In some of the poems, it is an isolated phrase or line that seems weak or out of place. There are several poems, however, that suffer from these problems more acutely. “Lemmings” describes office workers, particularly women, at the close of their days. The opening stanza sets the tone: “In cruel office shoes/Five o’clock ladies pound/Past, toward their release./(They’re homeward bound.)” The image is vivid, but the language is flaccid, the metaphors bordering on (if not embracing) cliché.

As a collection, though, Momentary Dark more than satisfies. That these relatively minor falterings seem so disappointing is a testimony to the overall quality of Avison’s work, and the high expectations that we readers have of it. She rarely disappoints.