*****
J.S. Watts casts her eye over three recently published poetry pamphlets and two third collections.
*****
Light and Dark by Alex Barr £16.00 Kelsay Books ISBN: 9781639806232
From the author’s biography, I calculate this to be the third collection from poet and short story writer, Alex Barr. The book is aptly described by the title, containing, as it does, contrasting humorous poems and those with darker, more serious themes, such as loss, death and ageing. The lightest poems with their obvious rhyming schemes seem suited to the pen of a writer who also writes story collections for children:
How peculiar to meet Mr Barr
who thinks of himself as still young
even though he’s a great grandpapa
and his swan-song’s about to be sung
Sometimes, of course, a single poem combines lightness of style with a darker theme. I found the more overtly dark poems, with their focus on loss, to be the most subtle, technically and thematically, also the most moving and the most thought-provoking, but that, I guess, is a question of taste. Nevertheless, there are some strong poems in this collection.
*****
Movement of People by Clive Donovan £10.99 Vole (Dempsey & Windle) ISBN: 9781917101066
Donovan’s third full collection has the somewhat dispiriting and Herculean task of exploring humankind’s darkest moments from the discovery of fire, stone tools and neighbour envy, via assorted wars and atrocities of mass destruction to our current heating up of the climate and the destruction of the entire planet we live on. The poetry is direct and damning of what: ‘These newfangled monkeys’ are unsubtly getting up to. Humankind does not come out of this well:
We were too busy
with our own exact concerns
to notice the fluid ecstasy of evil
*****
Unknown Woman & Other Attachments by Alan Price £8.00 Caparison ISBN:9781068747519
A pamphlet of 21 poem-portraits of women, both family and other, who have made an impression on the poet, plus six other poems on a diversity of subjects, but including more studies of women. The women and the experiences that relate to them are varied, as if each poem is trying: ‘to unknot/the mystery of who she was.’ The pamphlet is consistent to its theme and tone. The greatest subject and tonal freedom is saved for the six final poems.
*****
Shifting Sands by Anne Symons £7.00 Littoral Press ISBN: 9781912412556
A pamphlet of 36 pages and 26 lyrically haunting poems. Divided into two sections, the Biblical desert, and the beaches and interiors of Cornwall, these well-crafted and nuanced poems explore the stories of superficially well-known Biblical women (for example, Noah’s wife, Lot’s daughters) from their previously untold personal viewpoints, and create delicate vignettes of Cornwall (myth, history and tender personal memories). These are vivid stories, captured and told before they dissolve: ‘like patterns in the sand’:
a scrabble on the sand
and then the silence
*****
Once There Was Colour by Sue Wallace Shaddad £7.50 Palewell Press ISBN: 9781911587859
Once There Was Colour is a pamphlet of 34 pages and 30 poems dedicated: ‘To all those left behind’, which is appropriate. These are both deeply personal and political poems of leaving and longing. In deceptively brief, simple and straightforward poetry, Wallace-Shaddad shares with us the sights and sounds of Sudan, in time and in memory, before the outbreak of war and during, and via those fortunate enough to: ‘find sanctuary with family abroad’, but who: ‘fear what’s happening to those left behind.’
J.S. Watts is a poet and novelist. Her poetry, short stories and non-fiction appear in diverse publications in Britain and abroad and have been broadcast on BBC and independent radio. Her published books include: Cats and Other Myths, Songs of Steelyard Sue, Years Ago You Coloured Me, The Submerged Sea, Underword (poetry) and A Darker Moon, Witchlight, Old Light and Elderlight (novels). For more information, see her website https://www.jswatts.co.uk/
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