The premise is simple enough; a short poem written each day as dawn breaks for the last ten years and the best of them collected together in one volume. The result is anything but simple; it is joyous, thought provoking, positive, bold, audacious even but these words cannot encapsulate the achievements in this deceptively compact volume of poems. Small enough to slip in a pocket and carry with you for those moments when only a poem will do.
And for those who might eschew ‘modern poetry’ because they ‘don’t understand it’ or it ‘doesn’t rhyme’ this is perfect. All the poems are quatrains (stanzas having four lines with alternate rhymes) and the ideas contained within them can be as simple or as complex as the reader wishes to make them. You can read one poem in minutes but the ideas will say in your head for infinitely longer.
I felt that many particularly resonated with me because of morning for a start. I am a morning person and I crave the light. I can see this book being a salve during the winter months when I am deprived of light. I loved the conversations night and day, sun and moon, had with each other.
‘How do you grow?’said night
‘How do you keep it in the day?’
’To keep what I have,’ said light
‘I have to give it away.’
Some of the poems offer little epigrams to get you through the challenges of everyday life but not in a self help, preachy way but in a gentle, encouraging way.
The lesson of dawn is
Subtle and sublime -
Take it easy, but take it all
One day at a time.
Some are astute observations -
This little island
With its little angry people
And its little shouty church
And its pointy little steeple.
I could continue but I fear I’m in danger of quoting the entire book. I read many poems aloud because for me that’s how poetry should be read and I found myself concluding some with a resounding, ’YES!’
I love this book and when I’m not carrying it around with me it’s going firmly on my forever shelf.
My thanks to Canongate Books for a gifted copy.
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