Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Wendy Webb Books. 52 pp, £4.50, ISBN 978-1-903264-84-3
Available from Bernard M Jackson, 12 Selborne Gardens, Jesmond,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 1EY

   “The seasons turn, but time shall not harm these
     childhood moments caught upon a sigh”.

These lines are from Fearnville Sonnet (P.6); the first poem in this
evocative collection by Bernard M Jackson. For those like Bernard who
grew up during the second world war years these poems will bring back
poignant memories both of the dark and frightening ordeal of going into
the air raid shelter during the bombing raids and of the innocent
childhood games played in the playground described vividly in The
Games We Played (p. 13) “Hopscotch, hoops, tops and whips”. For
Bernard, his mother was a constant source of comfort, there to allay his
fears and to keep him “blanketed and safe and still” during those
“wakeful nights” when the planes drone overhead threatening to drop
their load. 

There was lots for a small boy to enjoy: “Dad’s wireless” that Bernard
describes as “a wonderland of dust and valves” that “hissed/brave
urgency/ through World War Two” (Attraction, p.9) , “the armies cast in
painted lead” to be found strewn “across the hearthrug”, until it was time
to put them away for bedtime. (Fireside Dreams, p.11), the fairytales
that were a welcome escape from “a war-whipped shaken world” and that
the author enjoyed as he sat on his father’s knee and the beautifully
described “Ting-a -Lairy Man” from the poem of the same name (p.31),
who would “weave” his “hurdy gurdy magic” as he turned the handle of
the barrel organ and inspired the children to “laugh and dance and play/as
only children can”.

One of my favourites in this collection is Those Little Shops (p.30), in
which the cycle shop, the draper’s store, the sweet shop and the toyshop
are brought magically to life. These were pre-supermarket days when the
little shops and the shopkeepers themselves were a vital part of town or
country life, and I think many readers will identify with the childhood
longing for a toy or puzzle spotted in the toyshop window. Another poem
that I particularly enjoyed reading was That Wind-Up Gramophone
(p.47). Bernard talks about this as “a treasured thing. A wind-up,
battered, box-like thing that brought music from its silvered horn”, and
inspired the poet’s love of music. I never had a gramophone but I
treasured my first record player and my first few records.

Bernard M Jackson is an accomplished poet who uses rhyming forms
like the sonnet and the kyrielle with ease. The latter works to haunting
effect in Kyrielle for a Lullaby (p.7). The repeated refrains helped me to
imagine the baby being rocked to his mother’s gentle voice and the “old
songs” that allayed “that vale of fear” during a war torn childhood, being
carried across the years to impact upon the memory of the grown man and
still retain the power to soothe. I also loved the poems written in the
Yorkshire dialect; fussy Old Jepson (p.19) with his “bald ‘ead and
wrinkled skin” is a beautifully drawn portrait of an eccentric character
that is sure to make the reader smile.

This little book is a delightful piece of social history and the poems are a
joy to read for their warm and perceptive descriptions of a landscape and
a people that have long gone, observed through the eyes of a child.