Category: Paul Brookes

Review of Paul Brookes’s book “These Random Acts of Wildness” by “Spriha Kant”

This book consists of a collection of poetries. 

The poet in some poetries makes his readers travel in, around, and out of the different portions of the home including lawns, backyards, kitchen, etc., in some of which he shows glimpses of the chores and concludes the bitter truth of the world and/or one of the fundamental truths of existence that whatever is created is meant to be destroyed the one or the other day. Quoting the following few words and stanzas from a few such poetries:

“His toy won't 
  cut grass but safely glides over its length, 
  so he stamps and bawls when his world don't 
  conform to his straight lines, because it's bent. 

  My wife says “Better” to our short shorn lawn. 
  We all want the wild to be uniform.”

“Organic time tamed, all about decay 
  not growth. Imagine accurate time based 
  on a gradually emerging way. 
  However, all things reduce to waste. 

  Our Dandelion's blown clocks are seeds
  to be uprooted as unwanted weeds.”

“A wave that washes away proof 
 that any effort has taken place, stacks 
 temporarily, finds another use, 
 
 elsewhere that is not always clear, and might 
 be mistaken for anarchy, or loss 
 of control, not wise, sensible foresight, 
 briefly anthologises summer's floss. 
 
 Never enough time to read the new 
 collections before gust edits the view.”
In a few of his poems, the poet has described the cruel and violent behavior of birds and animals such as in the poetry “The Hedgehog,” the intense fighting sequences can be seen. However, a few words from the poetry “Inhale Dappled Sun” are influential to bring tears to a compassionate heart, as quoted below:

“Bigger birds to feed their young snatch 
  open beaked fluffy kids from nests”

The poet has mixed many different horrible flavors in his different poetries, such as the poem “Polishing Me” which has a blood-curdling hysterical flavor. Similarly, the acerbic flavor in the last stanza of the poem “I Put My Bins Out” can be felt, and many other different flavors are worth reading in this book. 
    
Both poets and poetesses sometimes do work like abstract painters by leaving their poetries to the interpretation of readers. The poet has done so in his poetry “My Vacuuming” by concealing many stygian truths beneath it. The comprehension of the quantity or quantities of stygian truth(s) and the stygian truth(s) comprehended varies from reader to reader. 

Apart from concealing stygian truths beneath the poetry, the poet has also directly pointed to the messes encompassing the world in his poetry “My Window Cleaning” and a few words he used in this poetry are very deep and hard-hitting and, in the end, he states the question whose answer is unknown to him that shall remain unknown to everyone forever. 

The title of this book “These Random Acts of Wildness” kept by the poet is apropos to the shades the poet has used to paint his poems and he just wants to see the wildness vanish from this world that he stated in a few poems. Quoting a few words from the poem “Ironing” depicting the efforts the poet makes to reduce the wildness of this world:

“My hard weight tames the uneven and wild, 
  makes it all proper, gentle, meek and mild.”

However, merely, a shade is not appealing to the eyes in any painting. So, to add beauty to this poetry book, the poet also added tints in a few poems. The next two stanzas unfurl a few tints the poet added to a few poems. The pan containing shades was meant to be heavier than the tints in the beam balance of the poetries in this book as the poet desires to see the world without wildness and hence constantly tries to reduce the wildness. 

Personification is usually used to make the readers visualize the beauty of nature in the poems but the poet in his poetry “In Washing Up” has beautifully used personification to add enthusiasm and to motivate the spirit of readers. 

As it has been stated in the few words from the preceding stanza that “Personification is usually used to make the readers visualize the beauty of nature in the poems” so is the case in the poetry “Wildlife Map” except that the beauty is about the interaction between the light and slug windows. 

The poet has shone a very few poems with a beauty whose intensity is high with the size of a tiny thermocol ball, quoting such few beauties from different poems below:

“Butterfly briefly stainglasses our window.”

“A specialist shop 
 had a bud float in my clear cup unfurled 
 before my eyes.”
 
The poet has used very easy words with brevity to express the message he wants to convey to his readers. The use of easy words with brevity being one of the peculiarities of this book makes it suitable to be easily understandable by even non-poetic minds. 

Bios (Spriha Kant and Paul Brookes):

Spriha Kant:

Spriha Kant is a poetess and a book reviewer.

Her poetry The Seashell was published online at Imaginary Land Stories for the first time.

The poetries of Spriha have been published in five anthologies till now:

Sing, Do The Birds of Spring

A Whisper Of Your Love

Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan

Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the mind

Hidden in Childhood

Spriha has done seven book reviews till now:

The Keeper of Aeons by Matthew MC Smith

Nature Speaks of Love and Sorrow by Jeff Flesch

Washed Away: A Collection of Fragments by Shiksha Dheda

Spaces by Clive Gresswell

Silence From the Shadows by Stuart Matthews

Breathe by Helen Laycock

Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton

Spriha has collaborated on the poetry The Doorsteps Series with David L O’ Nan.

Spriha has been a part of the two events celebrating the launches of the books till now:

Nature Speaks of Love and Sorrow by Jeff Flesch

As FolkTaleTeller by Paul Brookes

Her poetic quote “An orphic wind storm blew away a sand dune that heaped all our love memories upon one another.” has been published as the epigraph in the book Magkasintahan Volume VI By Poets and Writers from the Philippines under Ukiyoto Publishing in the year 2022.

Spriha has been featured in the two interviews till now:

Quick-9 Interview on feversofthemind.com

#BrokenAsides with Spriha Kant on the brokenspine.co.uk

Spriha has been featured in Creative Achievements in 2022 on thewombwellrainbow.com.

The links to the features of Spriha Kant are:

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Poetess Spriha Kant

https://thebrokenspine.co.uk/2022/12/07/brokenasides-with-spriha-kant/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2022/12/27/celebrateyourcreativeachievementsof2022-calling-all-poets-short-prose-writers-artworkers-between-26-31st-december-i-want-to-celebrate-your-creativity-over-the-last-year-please-email-me-a-list-plus/

Paul Brookes:

Paul Brookes is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Speernbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk onder (Afterworld Books, 2019). He is the editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews, and challenges. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and, videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions. A poetry collaboration with artworker Jane Cornwell resulted in “Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing”, (JCStudio Press, 2021). Recent sonnet collections of his: “As Folktaleteller”, (ImpSpired, 2022), “These Random Acts of Wildness”, (Glass Head Press, 2023), and “Othernesses”, (JC Studio Press, 2023).

Twitter: @PaulDragonwolf1

WordPress: https://thewombwellrainbow.com/

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/PaulBrookesWriter/

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