Dilys Wood
Review
A Sparrow’s Flight, Lois Howard
A Sparrow’s Flight, Lois Howard, 2007, Slate New Writing (at www.neobookhop.co.uk). £6
Lois Howard’s A Sparrow’s Flight is a beautifully produced short pamphlet with no poem longer than 40 lines and most much shorter. Though all carefully written and serious in intent, I thought these poems varied quite widely in ‘realisation’ – that is, some seem to have important things to say, others to be lyrical will-o’-the-wisp, touching on matters of import but not really taking the thought far enough. In entitling her final poem Epiphany, for example, Howard suggests she has surprise, even revelation, for us, but I found the content predictable. There seemed more originality and food for thought in Harvest, Moving On, The Grass Cutter and Blessing in a bottle: “Go with the ones who fall from bridges / who are sucked face down into rivers / the ones who jump from cliff-tops / who drop like stones to the sea’s deep floor // be their guide where no guides are / their passage-leader through the darkest place”.
Page(s) 65
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