Review: New Light for the Old Dark by Sam Willetts

I chose this book as part of the 2015 Reading Challenge, this is my book with antonyms in the title.

Titles are something I struggle with as a writer and a reader. A bad title, a telling title or just something unappealing can instantly turn me away from a book; I do tend to read books based on instinct or initial appeal and occasionally recommendations. They also have the power to get me excited about a book or a poem or a play. They can light the fire of curiosity. Recently an editor came back to me with lovely compliments about my poetry but she didn't like the titles, and it has taken me nearly two weeks to rework those titles. It's like imagining your best friend with a different name - doable but a difficult habit to break.

Anyway; this title 'New Light for the Old Dark' slowly reveals itself through Willetts collection. It is about looking at childhood, heritage and ancestry, and the self in a 'new light' and dispelling the preconceptions that we leave behind us in the 'old dark'.
    The poems flow through Willetts own childhood, the upbringing of his mother's escape from the Nazis, and the redemption from a heroin addiction.
    Willetts manages to convey these unbelievable events through smaller, familiar images which give the reader a foothold in his reality. From the image of a little girl against her mothers hem to a Redbreast, the Dublin messenger-bird, the reader is absorbed into the world presented and becomes an active participant in its unfolding.
    There are moments of brutal perception in 'A Child at Their Party' when Willetts describes the scene as 'from a children's book written /  by adults for themselves.' - what a wonderfully heartbreaking observation. One that takes us back to our own childhoods and how we remember them, but also, as children the reminder that we were never on our own authority and that in fact our memories and environments; that we often hold so dear, are merely constructs. Artificial nostalgia created by adults for the adults that they are, that we were to become.
    The collection has a sense of loss about it, a sense of being the puppet, but this 'new light' shines onto the strings, and although we are the pawn in this big game of life and government it may actually be what we make of the 'old dark'; of our culture, history and within ourselves that breeds that light.

Englynion series: Cardiff

Cardiff

Take your time, enjoy it here.

Castle whispers in your ear.

Old meets new, it's any year

This is an Englyn Milwr, the rhyme scheme is a,a,a or monorhyme (which is when all end rhymes are the same) and each line contains 7 syllables (that is the tricky bit).  This type of Englyn was popularized in the first world war and is also known as the Soldiers Englyn. The content is normally used to either praise or mock a person or as a declaration on love. 

Here I use the Englyn to appraise Cardiff. I spent yesterday wandering around the city, something that I don't get to do often. I particularly like the clash of the old and new. On the edge of the city is Cardiff Castle,which blends with the horizon beyond the city and out across Bute park. In the middle is a labyrinth of side alleys, arcades, shops, streets and people and an eclectic mix of high end shops, high street regulars, independent and charity shops.  There are three theaters, St. David's Hall, the Royal Welsh and the universities. It's a small city but one which seems open to younger generations, as if waiting for people to come and put their mark across it. It also stretches out towards the bay but I haven't been there for a while. Whenever I venture to the capital I feel a sense of 'welshness' that bordering on a hallmark card. 

Review: The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion by Kei Miller

This was another random pick up from Wrexham Library (a wonderful place in a town that really needs it - I can't speak highly enough of this place).  The title struck me first, The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, initially we are stuck with this battle between the physical and the mythical and so we go into no mans land to watch each sides interaction. In my work at the moment I'm trying to map both a people and a place that no longer exist in the same forms; whilst tying their Welsh language and it's clash with the development of the English language around them. So this collection is speaking to me on many levels at the moment. 

       The poems jump of the page with their use of language, the layout of the poems coupled with the rhythm of the language opens the voice within your mind; allowing you to hear the battle between them. Interestingly, Miller has a wealth of experience in Slam Poetry, I wonder if the combat between the two speakers is a natural rhythm for him to write in.

    The blend of language is beautiful. On the one side we have the Cartographer who is trying to anchor himself and his location, pin his own language onto this land,  he says 'my job / is not to loose myself... My job / is to untangle the tangled', a wrench apart of physical place. If we think about our own placement in the world and how tangled that is to our emotional response, our memories, this is a very sad image indeed.  This is combated with the rastaman's mixture of Rastaradianism and patois, drawing the reader into his colloquialisms as he responds 'draw me a map of what you see / then I will draw...  Guess me whose map will tell the larger truth?'. 

    The battle between what is physically there, and what a place actually represents is outlined clearly in the series of poems that begin Place Name. particularly Flog Man where 'Blood did sprinkle the ground like anointing' - as a poet I find it difficult to allow myself to admit that there are many things, places, paths even people that can not be described accurately by any use of language, things that 'are' cease to be graspable, and that is their beauty. Possibly by describing the world around them we can outline their shadow; but they will never flesh out. This is the debate that the Cartographer and Rastaman find themselves entwined in. 

      Miller's use of his heritage is captivating. Knowing nothing of Jamaican literature or much of its culture I was hesitant, but Miller guides us through. At the beginning I felt myself clutching to the Cartographers poems, finding within them debates that I contemplate daily. Within the Rastaman's narrative however, is a lilting acceptance of things that come and go, an acceptance of not knowing and not having to show others evidence of its existence. 

      The rastaman leaves us gently,  he 'Bids you, Trod Holy / To I-ly I-ly I-ly'

     

Review: Mandeville by Matthew Francis

After having picked this collection up on a whim at my local library my first port of call was to research a bit on Mandeville; in order to understand the poets source material, the linguistic differences, the subtle nuances of change between Mandeville's original and Francis' reincarnation.
    What i found fascinating was the aura of mystery that surrounds John Mandeville and his travels, an excellent jumping board for any creative to explore. Did John Mandeville really travel to these exotic and completely unfamiliar destinations? Are his accounts anywhere near accurate? Questions that have no necessary answer but that leave space for both the poet and the reader to jump into.

In Francis' collection there are lots of avenues. The imagery is often luxurious, at time's sufocatingly rich such as in Of Circumnavigation where the reader is traded between lands along with 'wool for spices, grey sea for blue, our brass for gold', to the point where the reader becomes almost travel blind with description.
    There is very little subtly about each poem, the over arching journey is at best unessential. Instead I would look towards each poem as a case study, the arch being held in John Mandeville's own writing, this taking one fantastic element of each stage of his journey and unfolding it until it becomes something other than what it was, baring a tenuous likeness.
  The collection is an intoxicating synaesthesic blend of 'cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg..culminating in a virgin sulphur.'. I've read many poetry collection that take the reader on a physical tour, but this is another experience that is tangibly liked to the earth in a way that conjurs the fantastical from familiarity. Francis' description of the dead sea uses familiar images and locations but uses anthropamorphism to conjur the spirit of the sea, as it has ' swallowed its tears and become parched by the salt'.  - so beautiful!
    The relationship between Francis and these objects is one of almost ownership, a claiming of their relation to other things, there is little delicacy, little right to their existence without his observing them. There is something harsh about the poem that is 'now tarnished ' by five hundred years of sandstorms' - of poets that alter colour.





   

Blood Red Snow White - Review

Isn't it magical how you approach books? I saw this in W. H. Smith about 5 years ago and before I'd even read the title I was hooked on it. I have the hardback edition, and I genuinely feel that the texture of the pages, the colour of the writing, the beauty infused to it to submerge the reader into it's world. Well played Orion Books.

When people ask me for book recommendations I always mention this one, it's in my top list and has been there since I read it, which is an achievement because I'm the magpie of the book world. And I will tell you for why...
     
                        Set in the grip of Russia's communist revolution Blood Red Snow White is a mix of historical fiction, creative non-fiction, biography, fairy tale, spy thriller and love story. Squished into 300 pages. I was impressed by the sheer amount of trust that Sedgwick has in his readers. To mix these genre's take guts for the writer, but patience from the reader to allow them to flit and pick between mediums. This is combined with a distinctive 'Sedgwick' tone. The best analogy for this book is to imagine it on top of a black (red) Venetian mirror, and just when temptation gets too much and you reach out to take it you realise that is has been behind the mirror all along.
                             I have studied the Russian Revolution (GCSE History came in handy!) and so I 'got' many of the references to Russian culture at that time, the research that has gone into this novel is brilliant. However, the novel is beautiful even if you don't know a lot.
                           There are several layers of view point in the novel, you have the fairytale Bear of Russia following in the shadows adding in beautiful interludes of passion and fantasy. Alongside that there is the background of the revolution literally overthrowing and transforming a country. Out of the mist comes Arthur Ransome, broken from a love-less marriage and the love for his daughter, and consumed with trying to collect the pieces of the revolution, not to help the country but to report back to England. It is here that the reader is given a HQ, which allows them to wonder, guided, through the streets of the broken jigsaw that is Russia.
                          The first two sections of the book play out like this, the first being mainly fairy tale-esq and the second more spy thriller with the historical and biographical supporting it all. The third section has had a bit of bad press from reviews and I can understand that. Taking into account that Sedgwick is a pre-adult writer the final part had to happen as it does. It still has the beautiful gothic undertones but hurries to neaten the package to some extent. However, I felt for the characters until  page 304 and beyond, I'm pretty sure that's all that matters.