What I've Been Reading 4

Three recently published poetry collections and an autobiography with poetry

Contents

Introduction
Poetry from the Shed - Lesley Merrin
Ambience is All - Lesley Merrin
Ashes of Innocence - Paul Laycock
Poet - Paul Laycock
Hell Here - Helen Astin-Hardman
The Spaces In Between - Helen Astin-Hardman
Mapping Broken Roads - Roger Bloor
Customer 804 - Roger Bloor

Introduction

I started Sixty Odd Poets when I realised that many of my poet friends had no presence online, originally, I just wanted to be able to direct readers somewhere when I mentioned these friends in my other online writing. Soon, other poet friends, who already had an online presence were expressing an interest in joining the Fellowship of the Sixty Odd, and after that I stared to receive submissions from people who I had never actually met before. Some of these were established poets with a string of publications to their name already.

I still encourage unpublished poets who I meet at open mics, readings and workshops to get involved, and take a lot of pleasure in bringing their work to a wider audience, seeing this as an important part of what Sixty Odd poets is about. I also enjoy featuring the work of poets who I have never met, and I love it if I subsequently get to meet them, sometimes this happens at a Sixty Odd book launch and sometimes at some other event. It is almost like meeting someone famous, I have read their work, and discussed it with them and others online, but to meet up in the real world and shake hands is fabulous.

When an established and much published poet who I have never met contacts me about being included in the project, my emotions are mixed. They must have made a mistake, I say to myself. Do they not realise that I am an amateur, a nerdy obsessive, sitting in front of an ancient Apple Mac, banging together Substack articles in snatched half hours just for the hell of it. But I am proud that what I have created has attracted their attention for whatever reason, and happy because to be able to put their work next to the work of my friends and acquaintances raises the profile of the project and adds to the value of what I am able to offer those friends and acquaintances. (and if I am honest, it massages my ego too - and isn’t that what poetry is all about for us poets?)

Anyway. Here are four reviews of recently published poetic works: Two from people who I know well, from The Read to Write Poetry Group in Mexborough. One from a poet/author, who lives locally to me, who I met through her submission to sixty odd poems. And one from an established who has an M.A in poetry writing, has founded a press and a literary magazine, and has a list of publications as long as your arm.

I love them all, and have no doubt that you will find something in at least one of them that touches a chord in you. If you do, try and get hold of one of their publications, even if it means emailing and asking me to go around their house and beg one for you. Your support will be welcomed.

Poetry from the Shed - Lesley Merrin

I have known Lesley Merrin for around fifteen years now. She has written poetry since she became a founder member of the Mexborough Read to Write Poetry group back in 2010. In February 2024, she was the 11th poet to be featured on the Sixty Odd Poets page. Poetry from the Shed is her second collection, a companion piece to Firefly which was published in 2019.

2019 is so long ago now in the pre-covid era. The titular shed of this new collection is Lesley’s old garden shed, which she used as a sanctuary and writing room during the lockdowns, and became le salon des arts de la shed de bois once restrictions were relaxed a little. The opening poem in this collection (below) tells a little of the story.

Lesley has dedicated the book to her grandchildren. This is a nice touch, as much of its content is about family. Uncle Horace is a character sketch of a much loved uncle

you were handsome with your dark, curly hair
and Errol Flynn pencil moustache 
a collier with broad shoulders and sinewy body

Other pieces recall family holidays of the 1950s and 60s, and sitting in the warmth of a fire of coal and wood in the family home.

A second section of the book, Love Stories, looks at love from a variety of angles in What is Love Lesley observes that …

Love doesn't want to cause happiness
It wants to cause mayhem in your mind

She also looks at how love is expressed by a teenage granddaughter, between a prisoner of war in letters to his sweetheart, and between an elderly dementia patient and her husband.

There is plenty more in this slim volume of poetry, including tales of victorian crime, wartime tragedy and a tiger kept as entertainment. it is well worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy.

Ambience is All - Lesley Merrin

It's a shed... it's a shed
I know it's a shed you asked to see it 
I thought you just called it The shed, 
He wasn't interested in
the poems littered across the shed, 
The echoes from the musicians T
he paintings, the sketches 
The memories of past events.

He repeated It's a shed,
why would people want to sit in a shed 
drinking tea?
Is there something up with your house?
He didn't feel the ambiance of le Salon 
He couldn't picture the artists, poets the musicians.
He couldn't picture any one of us
Laughing, listening to jazz and soaking up the atmosphere
He just saw a shed.
I didn't like his coat anyway.


…
Poetry From the Shed is published by the Sherwood Press, If you want a copy, (£5.00 plus p&p) drop me a line and I'll get Lesley to put one in the post for you. 

<<<

Ashes of Innocence - Paul Laycock

Paul is another who has started his poetry career in retirement after joining the Read to Write group. He has also appeared as number 43 of the Sixty Odd Poets back in October 2024. Ashes of Innocence is his first collection, and as he says in his introduction, it is an eclectic one, with its 32 poems covering a range of subjects and styles, which he has helpfully categorised into seven sections.

I think that it is fair to say that part of the reason for the large range of styles is that Paul is still finding his voice as a poet, and those of us who are fortunate enough to know him have seen him gain in confidence and his work develop over the past few years.

There are a number of humorous poems in the collection. It is easy to relate to tales Paul tells in pieces such as On Losing a Sock, Pain, or Clear Out, and these always go down well when performed live. Rice Pudding is another often requested crowd pleaser in which the humour is mixed with a rich nostalgia for years of childhood innocence.

There is more than humour in this volume though. Indeed, the title poem mourns a loss of innocence in a hard hitting style that is far from the tone set by Rice Pudding, whilst pieces such as At Water’s Edge and The Street are hard hitting with their tales of hardship and grief.

Pieces on getting older and his beloved Filey Bay particularly resonate with me as I am also an long time lover of the Yorkshire seaside.

Throughout the work Paul experiments with form, sometimes using formal approaches such as the sonnet, and only rarely abandoning rhyme. In Poet, he asks how he can claim to be a poet. he has answered the question himself in this debut collection which holds great promise. I look forward to reading further work in which he will doubtless develop his voice further and bring more riches from the recesses of his mind.

Poet - Paul Laycock

Can I claim to be a poet 
if I write in metered lines?
If I put some words together 
and sometimes make them rhyme?
If I share my deepest feelings 
and question all of life, 
then challenge those around me, 
to see by different light?

Can I claim to be a poet 
if I write upon a page
some words of grand philosophy 
as if I were a sage? 
that sees through eyes wide open 
a world that is so dark 
where fear and hate of things unknown, 
cast shadows on the heart

Can I claim to be a poet 
when other's words I hear 
in awe as voices echo 
experience of years?
Their great and wondrous stories, 
their vision, their delight
could never be so matched by me 
in all the words I write.

Can I claim to be a poet 
when often times I fail?
When beauty that surrounds me 
stays hidden by a veil.
When all the words within my head 
collide and crash and burn 
and will not come together 
no matter how I yearn

…
Ashes of Innocence is published by the Sherwood Press, If you want a copy, (£5.00 plus p&p) drop me a line and I'll get Paul to put one in the post for you. 

< < <

Hell Here - Helen Astin-Hardman

Hell Here, was what it said on the sign that Helen Astin-Hardman had in the window of her red lit apartment in the student halls at Huddersfield University in the early 2000s. She was a strange character, gothic in dress, prone to wearing horns, and taking a grim pleasure in the fact that people were wary of her. They called her Scary Mary, and believed that she might be some sort of a witch. She considered herself a satanist, had read deeply about the subject, being fascinated by religion and dark philosophy.

She also heard voices. Voices which she was convinced were real. it wasn’t until she was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2007 that she began to make any sense of what had been going on in her mind, and it wasn’t until 2024 that she managed to get it all down in the book Hell Here which is a fascinating and grim autobiography, in the form of letters; to the voices, to her friends and family, and to many of the other people who knew her in those dark days.

I came across Helen when she submitted her poetry to me in late 2024. In the autobiographical notes, she described herself as a communist ex-satanist with a history of paranoid schizophrenia. the poetry was good, she seemed like an interesting character and she duly became the 54th of the Sixty Odd Poets. When I launched Soixante Neuf, the ninth Volume of Sixty Odd Poets, Helen turned up with her husband Rob, and read her poetry to us at the Fox Gallery in Mexborough. I bought a copy of Hell Here and when I got around to reading it (I always have a pile to work through) I was amazed at the depth of her disclosure. It can’t have been easy to write such a frank account of your own mental illness. When I had finished it, I felt that I knew a lot more about schizophrenia, and that I almost knew Helen and Rob as friends. I imagine that you would feel the same way if you read it yourself.

Each chapter/letter is headed by a piece of Helen’s poetry. I particularly liked this one…

The Spaces in Between - Helen Astin-Hardman

We are nothing, you and I, 
a set of atoms swirling with electrons.
Spaces so vast, that we are emptiness,
humanity with no spaces would fit into a matchbox, 
with room left to spare.

Space is empty, emptier than we can gather, 
planets swirling round like electrons, 
in a vast empty void,
once crushed into a single point, the eye of a god.

We are something, you and I, 
a set of atoms swirling with electrons.
We have mass, not see through like glass,
humanity without spaces, would be closer than we've ever been.

Space is full, fuller than we realise,
planets swirling round like electrons.
A place full of light,
almost like a brain, the brain of a god.

... 
Hell Here is available from Partnership Publishing  (£12.50 plus p&p)

< < <

Mapping Broken Roads - Roger Bloor

Roger submitted two excellent pieces of poetry for All Hallows Eve the sixty odd Poets Hallowe’en Special. Shortly after this went out I was contacted by his publisher Becca Barnard, who kindly sent me a copy of his forthcoming book, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Roger is an accomplished poet, who has previously worked both as a Clinical Psychiatrist and a senior lecturer at the Keele University School of Medicine.

He manages to weave his experience in these roles into this almost cinematic collection using a range of poetic forms, many which he has devised himself, containing themes of innocence lost, mental illness, trauma and recovery.

The Broken Roads referred to in the title are mental routes back to the comfort of ‘home’, when a person has lost their bearings due to some traumatic event.

Roger presents a range of stressful episodes and situations in which connections to the safety of this ‘home’ have been lost. From youthful sexual ideas and experiences in pieces such as The Young Boys Guide to living on the Surface of the Sun and Other Difficult things and Book Learning, through to the mature sadness of Missed and Vacancy, unease and disquiet are constant companions, which, for me, bring a grim satisfaction in knowing that other people have felt these emotions too.

Much of the central section of the book deals with a specific traumatic incident in which someone (a health worker?) has suffered the blood of another (a mentally ill patient?) entering their mouth during an altercation. This is viewed through the eyes of the worker and their therapist, with references drawn from The Criteria of post Dramatic Stress Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2013). Other sections draw from The Eagle boy’s paper (1957) and the Jackie Annual (1992).

There are many interesting ideas within this book. They will have you pausing to reflect and perhaps wrestling with them long after you have finished your first read through.

Ventriloquists throw their voices out into the world constructing conversations with themselves (From the Art of Divination)

All Hollow bodies surround a space they do not occupy (From Promise)

The soft edge of the seat is only padding over the welded steel that underlies what we believe (From We Take the Last Bus Home)

Mapping Broken Roads is not an easy read, but it is a rewarding one, and will bear being read a number of times, with new thoughts and ideas being unearthed on each occasion.

One of my favourite pieces, Customer 804, works well as a stand alone sketch, with an intriguing air of mystery about it.

Customer 804 - Roger Bloor

I ordered coffee from the girl 
who had a laminated badge 
pinned above her heart 
that said

Call Me Mandy

her eyelashes 
black as the
medium-one-shot-no-milk
Americano I ordered

threw shadows on her cheeks 
from mood lights
upped in upturned copper bowls 
suspended far above her head

when she brought 
Americano for Roger 
over to my table
I said Thanks Mandy
and reached to rest my hand 

an inch above her arm

as close to flesh-on-flesh 
that could be expected 
from such a brief acquaintance

I asked her if the the of novelty teapots
on the shelf above the door belonged to her

she hesitated

lowered her head snug against my face 
and whispered No they're shit 

before she walked away


....
Mapping Broken Roads will be published in February by Barnard Publishing  (£8.99 plus p&p)  Meanwhile, you can read some of Roger's thoughts on poetry on his excellent Substack  (I hadn't really read it until this week, when I noticed an article on Tennyson, now I am even more impressed than I was when I wrote the introduction above. 

< < <

If you would like me to review something of yours, have a word with me, online or in real life. Sending me a PDF copy would be very useful. Alternatively, you might find more takers by sending it to Promote Indie Lit, a loose coalition of interested writers and publishers which offers a means to promote publications easily and without fees. There really is no cost or risk involved. What you send can only be seen by a small group of reviewers, and will not be shared beyond that group.