Home » Reading & Literature » Modern British Poetry » New British Poetry 26: Writing on Water

New British Poetry 26: Writing on Water

© Dr J D Ballam

As I begin to assemble materials for the coming year's reviews I will pause briefly this month to reflect upon a collection from a publisher whose work has appeared frequently in this column. Once again, I am pleased to have received the anthology of re-assembled highlights from a poetry competition sponsored by Ragged Raven Press. This year's collection is entitled WRITING ON WATER (Snitterfield: Ragged Raven Press, 2005), and contains the work of thirty-four authors. As always, it is a stylish and smartly-bound volume, which includes brief biographical notes on the contributors, and a short selection of the publisher's other titles with reviewers' comments. Priced at only £5.00, it is clearly a bargain.

This is most evidently the case when in reading the forty poems included here it becomes immediately apparent that there are no weak links. Quite the contrary, the hallmarks of the entire collection are strength, versatility, integrity and a bold fusion of highly complex emotions and rigorous intellectual questioning. Though the themes and styles vary considerably, throughout the book there is a display of excellence and craftspersonship.

The long first-prize-winning poem by Michael McGill, entitled 'Winona Forever' embodies the editors' ethos most completely. Here are three stanzas taken just before its conclusion, reprising somewhat the tenor of its carpe diem theme:

Once in a theatre, Johnny leapt/ from the balcony and threw/ himself onto the stage, hollering/ and signalling for me//

To join him. But I stood behind/ the barrier, knowing that youth/ had just leapt away from me/ for good. And I think of him sometimes//

And the laughter we stole/ in a two year frame. I think/ of Johnny and, like wildfire,/ he is still dancing.

Contrast the poignant exuberance of this Zorba-like image with the tender, ironic tone of these lines from Christine Coleman's 'Going Home':

She taught me: waste not want not/ elbows off the table god is love/ a stitch in time saves nine/ I'll do it myself, says the Little Red Hen.//

She taught me: mayonnaise -/ pouring oil, drip on steady drip/ into the golden yolk/ she taught me top to the bottom/ bottom to the wash./ How to make my bed and/ how to lie on it.

Or then again, the gentle melancholic musings of Pat Borthwick's 'Spider', whose death is portrayed thus:

[...] Her legs/ were folded under at each joint/ like a crane's grab in a seaside arcade//

when time and money/ have both run out.

The copyright of the article New British Poetry 26: Writing on Water in Modern British Poetry is owned by . Permission to republish New British Poetry 26: Writing on Water in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.