Reviews
Gothic Tales by Pat Earnshaw
P. Earnshaw, Willinghurst Cottage, Shamley Green, Guildford GU5 OSU. £4.50.
I was pleased to see another collection by Pat Earnshaw, whose poetry grows in strength with every publication. Gothic Tales deals with the weird and the under-belly of things. The blurb refers to the use of old superstitions and folk tales. These are here, but the intensity of language and depth of insight takes in many layers and aspect of life. The finely musical Winter spreads a wide net, while crystallising details: '...The street outside is quiet. / Did I imagine footfalls? Dare I / look back? A monster shadow follows, / circling its axis as the street lamps / throw their curves. Time drags, / his shadow death tied to his heels. / Tyres sizzle past along the asphalt road, / the cyclist's rear wheel wobbling / like the planet earth tilted upon its axis / mapping the vast precession of the stars...And now the paths are rivers and the fields / are ponds. The graveyard stones, loosened / by water, lean far over prising the soil / to excavate the corpses. The ketchup-blooded / snakes, sleeping off summer's orgy / in their burrows, will be drowned...'. She reflects powerfully on the loss or dislocation of memories in Irretrievable: 'Memories torn from the past / and ripped to small pieces are already / unreadable. Now the rain clumps them, / solid as papier maché. / All their brilliancies are lost...' to 'Where are the originals? They hang / on a wall illuminated by shadow, the light / too intermittent and too dim to see them. / At the far end a staircase leads up / but is shaky and unpredictable...' I wish these collections could be taken up by a larger publisher and become better known.
Page(s) 41-42
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