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The Path to the Sea by Thomas A. Clark.
Arc Publications, Nanholme Mill,  Shaw Wood Road, Todmordern OL14 6DA  £8.95.


Scotland is the backdrop to Thomas A. Clark's The Path to the Sea. This is a talent of a high order. Nature poetry and a predominantly imagist style characterise the collection. The detailed images and integral reflections that make them so powerful are not mostly noticeably particular to Scotland but have a universal feel. These are fine untitled poems which can be regarded as continuous within sections or as individual poems. There is much movement and the sharp, evocative images are allowed to do the work, as in '...birch, pine and rowan / huddle in ravines / a stonechat drops / its note among stones.'  Thomas Clark often uses repetition to intensify the feeling. A mood and turning point is particularly well expressed in  'the distances are lonely / silence is immediate / immediately lonely / the rough bounds are desolate // you flinch away from it / yet each drop of rain / on your face or your arm / is a point of return'. Each poem is delicate, honed and incisive. The method of evocation is reminiscent of good haiku, where images imply and extend. Indeed he has some three-line poems, not haiku, but with the same atmosphere  in the section Rills and Tussock, for example 'after rain / wind shaking / light from trees' and 'a stonechat / chip chipping at silence'.

   There is more narrative reflection in slightly longer poems in 'At Dusk & at Dawn' as in 'to sit out in the air / and take the shape of the air / its cool spaciousness and precision / and never mind what comes to mind / but attend and cease to attend / remaining cool and spacious / this is the poise of being alone /to be one and no other'. These beautiful poems are seductive, as the '...subtlety that folds  / back into stillness again / you might almost touch it / an occasion in the air / as steady as a great tree / branching into delicate life.'