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The Usher's Torch by Linda Rose Parkes.
Hearing Eye, Box 1, 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX , £6.95.


Also published by Hearing Eye is a substantial collection of Linda Rose Parkes' poetry, The Usher's Torch. There are recollections and recreations of the past, that extend beyond the immediate experience, for instance in  The Teacup. '...And every morning, my mother pours / the tea to just below the rim of the thatch...' The narrative develops to subtly surreal images of a boy and his terrier and a woman in a lace bonnet  - 'the hills brim and /spill around their heads: the woman / struggles in her tea-logged skirts to hold / the eggs' to 'I drain the valley in hurried sips..' There is often a fractured sense in these accomplished poems, partly humorous, partly fearful.  She reflects on possessing one word in My Middle Ear  where it is a presence in a situation that is ambiguous - lonely or not - '...It hung upside down / from the bed head, / swung back and / forth across the ceiling / when I tried to retrieve / it for the waiter / who brought peas / and mashed potatoes / and called me / ma'moiselle'. A Bunch of Weirdos is a small gallery of people not especially eccentric or weird, but with an offbeat effect on the narrator. The Distant Aunt '...concealed a purse of coals / to trade for whisky, a tot of milk. /Steam still rising off her pony, /I'll smooth clean sheets for her, / shake out a duvet...' to the poet's reflection, 'I start a thought and keep crossing / back for a set of instructions, / a dropped notebook: as if I was / charting a lost self.'