This volume grabbed my heart from the beginning because it began with a foreword written by the poet’s eight year old daughter. Her love and pride for her Dad shine through. And so they should.
I was fortunate enough to have a place on the blog tour for Steve’s previous volume of poems, Days of Falling Flesh and Rising Moons and I was captivated by his words. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity to experience some more of his work. I come alive when reading his poems because they express the insides of life not the outsides. Again I was struck by the paradox of the apparent simplicity that evokes a series of complex situations and emotions. It’s not merely an economy of words, it’s finding the right word, the most perfect phrase, to convey something definitively. So there’s almost nothing more to be said.
His observations of people are acute. I loved ‘The Little Girl in the Hotel Bar’ where he understands that desire for something can exceed the ability but the euphoria exceeds it all.
‘she looked at me
her eyes were summer lakes
her smile, the sky
her fingers, elegant, sure
and ready
she took a breath
closed her eyes
started to play
and frankly
she wasn’t great'
So many of these poems are vignettes; creating a word tableau of, sometimes, every day situations that we can all be familiar with but sometimes maybe we’ve never really thought about them. Denehan inspires you to consider the mundane even and give it a potent meaning.
As with the previous book his thoughts and observations on fatherhood and of watching his child grow are some of the most poignant in the collection. Unicorn Dressing Gown expresses so simply, so succinctly that sense of knowing that childhood doesn’t last and it will pass all too quickly.
‘but soon the unicorn dressing gown will be cast aside
the way of many other things
soon
she will brush her own hair’
There are numerous quotable maxims;
‘every silver lining has a cloud
and summer hides in every snowflake’
‘and I realise
that the problem
Is not that things end
but that they continue’
‘I suppose
that sometimes
the days themselves are poems’
‘while knowing
that things were better than
not at all
it is just
that they’re worse today’
Another favourite poem is Ticks and Tocks. I love the idea that if you don’t teach your child how to tell the time they remain unfettered by its restraints.
’time
can wait’
I found that several poems explored the yin and yang of life, U-Turn and Glass Bottom particularly resonated with me. The lack of punctuation offers a challenge for intonation and interpretation which is often exciting in terms of extracting intention and meaning. I believe I expressed something similar when I read …’Flesh and …..Moons’’ but it’s like reading a photograph album. Each poem captures moments, occasions and emotions.
And it wouldn’t be Steve Denehan if there wasn’t some kind of reference to a great jazz vocalist! In this volume it’s the wonderful Carmen McCrae’s interpretation of Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. Jazz and poetry. Can it get any better? And in a way we’re back where we started. For that reference comes from his daughter’s favourite poem ‘One More Week’. I’m inclined to agree with her choice.
My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon for a place upon the blog tour and a gifted copy of the book.
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