Reviews
Still Standing by Peter Street
Towpath Press, 4 Canterbury Avenue, Lowton, Warrington,
WA3 2HA; ISBN 1901999084; A5 perfect bound; 48pp; £4.99
Peter Street is keen to strip things to essentials, e.g. in "Lipik Square - Croatia", taking a fire engine to a war-torn village, "... It’s chest out ready for the cheers/ and, ‘you’re so brave coming all this way!’// The siren beats us to the village,/ turning a blind eye to old men and women/ crying outside their bombed-out houses.// Unaware of young girls/ raped by regiments of soldiers/ and large apples in landmined orchards.// We’re in the wrong place,/ it’s the wrong set./ This is a real war...". As Matt Simpson’s introduction implies, Peter Street can be admired for working to bring able-bodied and disabled artists together, for going to Croatia despite the aftermath of war and his own disabilities, and you can see these going down well at a live reading, but I was left with the sense that, on the page, something was missing, as if some of the poetry had been stripped out too.
Towpath Press, 4 Canterbury Avenue, Lowton, Warrington,
WA3 2HA; ISBN 1901999084; A5 perfect bound; 48pp; £4.99
Peter Street is keen to strip things to essentials, e.g. in "Lipik Square - Croatia", taking a fire engine to a war-torn village, "... It’s chest out ready for the cheers/ and, ‘you’re so brave coming all this way!’// The siren beats us to the village,/ turning a blind eye to old men and women/ crying outside their bombed-out houses.// Unaware of young girls/ raped by regiments of soldiers/ and large apples in landmined orchards.// We’re in the wrong place,/ it’s the wrong set./ This is a real war...". As Matt Simpson’s introduction implies, Peter Street can be admired for working to bring able-bodied and disabled artists together, for going to Croatia despite the aftermath of war and his own disabilities, and you can see these going down well at a live reading, but I was left with the sense that, on the page, something was missing, as if some of the poetry had been stripped out too.
Page(s) 19
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