Tag: Erbacce-press.co.uk

A Book Review of “Spaces” by Clive Gresswell reviewed by Spriha Kant

The poet “Clive Gresswell” in his poetry book “Spaces” painted all the poetries by the strokes of imagery metaphors, and personifications, influential to move all the readers intensely emotional.

Clive in some of his poetries shone a light on the sides of gloominess, melancholy, petrification, and devastation of globally critical issues, whether it’s about holy wars, nuclear holocaust, the unfortunate deaths of the innocents injured in wars amidst the medical assistance, the impact of the destruction of moral principles and ethics upon children of this generation, and many critical issues, each poetry evincing a different critical issue concerning a global level. A few stanzas quoted from the poetry “Vowels” are: 

"lays siege      to wailing     wallflowers and embrocation  
  a dalliance    with   creatures   from    darkened pools
emitting blood     lusts     of   linguistic    deadpan images
throttling gestures rekindling"

"bones declared
whittled down          in passages              a tresspass on this
night-time curfew    its razor blades        screeched against
the vowels                laid before               his lolling tongue."

The poet also shows the occurrences of gloominess, melancholy, petrification, and devastation in the personal life of a person in his 
poetry "Air".

The poet not only limited the poetries concerning global issues but also shone a light on the intrapersonal zone in his poetry "Jealousy".

The poet in the poetry "Blarney" stated about the life of the mine laborers, showing how far his poetries can reach by bringing into the light even those who remain concealed in the dark.

In the poetry "Misplaced", the poet used his words as a cudgel to bring a spark and hope to get liberty into the hearts of those who get oppressed by tyranny by praising the glorious victories of all time of revolutionary movements over tyranny that can be read by the following words:

"final winds                               that document
   golden journeys   from  place    to misplaced"

"the inkling       of another       world unfurled"

"slipped     mask of    redemption   curdles
    into          remarkable    liberty"

"lacerations   pitted
     into           reworked     hemispheres   beyond
   a lucid    phosphorescence    intimidated  into"

The title "Misplaced" apropos to the overthrow of tyranny by constant rallying protests shows the poet's keenness about poetries.

The poet also captured high-resolution beautiful sceneries of nature in some of his poetries including "Dawn", "Sky", "Singing" and a few more, each poem emitting a radiance of different aura.  A few words quoted from his poetry "Sky" are

"classless hostages          to dawn's          reunion
  forest   carpeted             in golden          epithets
  the demanding         needs of              gossip dust
   whose sunshine swirls"

This book is reserved for those brilliant poetic souls whose consciences are wise and run by the poetries like blood in the veins, are nature lovers, and remain aware, concerned, sensible, and sensitive about issues of global-level concern as well as about the intrapersonal feelings of others and the agonies of others.

https://www.erbacce-press.co.uk/CliveGresswell

Clive Gresswell is a 64-year-old innovative writer and poet who has appeared in many mags from BlazeVOX to Poetry Wars and Tears in the Fence. He is the author of five poetry books the last two being ‘Strings’ and ‘Atoms’ from erbacce-press (see their website for more details).

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Clive Gresswell

Bio on Spriha Kant:

Spriha Kant developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthologies “Sing, do the birds of Spring” and “A Whisper of Your Love” in the fourth and fifth series of the books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts, She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder/editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’Nan, Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1” from Fevers of the Mind. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow”, based on a photograph clicked by herself, as the “Seventh Synergy” in “Synergy: Calling All Writers Who are Photographers” on his blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L O’Nan. She has reviewed the poetry book “Silence From the Shadows” by Stuart Matthews. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been published in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “Wombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes.

A book review of “Push” by Sadie Maskery

a review by Matthew da Silva

These lovely poems reach out with straining hands to touch the infinite, to press between the pages of a book a moment in time, to capture forever a thought that might stray across the frontal cortex of any person’s racing mind. Or perhaps a lazy, resting mind, as when you’re surfing the internet eager for distraction. The attempt is usually successful, as in ‘404’, which invites us to see the failures of community as it exists online, a place of fear and foolishness where people resent connection before they find the fractured peace they secretly desire. In this experimental poem, Maskery alternates between a more conventional poetic diction and snatches of computer code, suggestive phrases (“HttpResponseMessage Get / (string connection))” that draw you into the authored, mechanical realm lying between everyday utterances written in cyberspace as part of a flame war held any morning of the week in Atlanta or Abu Dhabi. The internet “decays” but “I don’t exist without” it seems, the poet reflecting on the ephemeral by trying to nail down fleeting instants that disappear in the ether as soon as they come into stuttering existence.

A disconnect also exists in ‘Do not enter’, a monologue by a person meeting a visitor at the door. The invitation appears sincere although there is a sign on the door telling people to keep out. Why has the visitor come? It’s not clear. There are no clues as to how this person decided it was apposite to knock – though life is like this, isn’t it? – but what he or she hears should, perhaps, reassure. Questions are raised and some are answered but the sense of foreboding that rests once the poem ends suggests that something is amiss.

This dislocation is repeated in poem after poem, for example in ‘make me’, which is, again, about the internet. Here, in a few words, Maskery tries to understand – and to communicate to the reader – something about its allure, but while the outlines of debate are defined there exist by the end of the poem – which is not long – more questions than answers. What is virality? How does this rare exposure help us to become more completely ourselves? Or is that not the appeal? Perhaps the answer lies in the message of the previous poem, ‘Prayer’, which is addressed to “gods of the ephemera” so that “sins may be sold” (if they could be, we’d all be rich) and “let us devour” the body “sacred / scarred” that we worship.

I really enjoyed reading these digestible items, and the collection often veers off into the inexpressible, as in ‘i’m so sorry, it’s just’ where it’s never clear exactly what the narrator is talking about, just “one sweetness / one beauty” “residue / from its grind / smirching / the smell of small things” though “why / pretend all is well” in this world of destruction and release, of small things broken apart and devoured (looking back to ‘Prayer’) by anonymous crowds of people (looking back to ‘404’)?

Surprises lend their appeal to the chorus of sorrow Maskery unmasks, so in ‘Thread’ the message is thin but eloquent, a single phrase written down to look like a pair of threads – perhaps a strand of DNA encoding our identity – that sit upon the page like flags flying above a parapet on a windy day.

The waves of the lines are enticing and strange. In ‘Beginnings’ an uncommon enticement reveals the outlines of desire, a moment rendered in words like a synapse firing, “The first time we meet the shock / is there but small” and the poet goes on to lay out in miniature the universe of the mind that that instant unfurled. This is a masterpiece of expressive competence, a very strong poem that unearths worlds that are normally buried in the vast wildernesses of memory. As I read I started to recall things that had happened to me, a night when I was maybe 21, a day I went to a party in Double Bay, various times that happened in my life – so long ago – arose to conquer my attention in the flickering present where images combine with the pulse of the computer screen to reveal the mind’s frail existence in all its broken lightness and sorrow.

So the positive dwells in this collection of short poems – many are one page long, some are two pages long – alongside the negative (see especially ‘Networking’), the euphoric (see for example ‘Art’) with the base, the high with the low, the thing to be celebrated with the pain of despair. I was struck by the flexibility of Maskery’s evocative voice, its ability to accommodate a range of ideas and to give utterance to an array of different feelings. This is a memorable book.

Order here: https://www.erbacce-press.co.uk/sadie-maskery

3 poems from “Push” by Sadie Maskery “Lost Child” “Rearrangement” & “Once we were”

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Sadie Maskery

Poems about “Connections” by Sadie Maskery