Reviews
First Cut by Keith Walton
A5 perfect bound, 56pp. £6.50 ISBN 0-9548171-0-9 Brimstone Press, PO Box 114 Shaftesbury, SP7 8XN http://brimstonepress.co.uk
First Cut is a true collection, not one theme, but a gathering of disparate 'occasionals'. Travels figure, as does remembrance, and classical allusions. The shorter poems made more impact. The longer often took metaphor / concept beyond credibility / sympathetic reading. The Diver held me -
The light thickened, to resin, to amber.
Cicadas scratched at the silence.
You slept, tousled, spellbound.
I watched him climb, in slow motion,
his shadow flexing up the bright rock,
his twin climbing down into the glass sea...
Here Keith's relation to the observed is necessary; but, in other poems, all too often his self-regarding intruded. Where his unspoken part is assumed, as in The Traveller - where we can imagine what bitter effect this woman may have had on him - the poem sticks.
Because of my many reservations I was disappointed with First Cut: as a collection I don't think it represents Keith Walton's undeniable talent.
Page(s) 34
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The