IDRIS CAFFREY: RELATIVELY UNSCATHED Cinnamon Press Ty Meiron Glan yr Afon Tanygrisiau Blaenau Ffestiniog Gwynedd LL41 3SU UK ISBN 978 1 905614 30 1 £7.99 email Cinnamon Press visit the website of Cinnamon Press Web design by This page last updated: 10th December 2007. |
IDRIS CAFFREY: RELATIVELY UNSCATHED | |
It is not often a reader comes across a book of poems that gives unequivocal pleasure. Mr Caffrey's book is such a one. These are not ambitious poems that seek to change the world (and anyway poetry has little place in the world of movers and shakers). They are poems that quietly and lyrically describe the sometimes-complex simplicities of life — such contradictions are the stuff of poetry. SNOW Stillness, sudden warmth, a few small flakes falling then growing like memories. I look into the sky, let the swirling snow take me. Sledges, the shrieks of children and a small room darkening with the last embers of a fire, until I find myself standing in the rain.Mr Caffrey's writing is consistently accessible. He has no need of overt erudition or tortured imagery to dig beneath the surface of the seemingly ordinary. His is a finely honed craft — this from HORSES IN WINTER: They stand patient and still, watching the world from afar as if not part of it anymore — their steaming breath taken away by the cold clutches of the day. ... I think they will stand forever shuddering at the end of every day, silent as graves and long betrayed; waiting for the first bright star to draw the dark around them — hide the centuries of dismay.Quoting this poet's work is difficult; each poem grows organically and to quote merely a few lines will not necessarily convey the quality of the whole. In a world that, in the main, sets out to shock, it is refreshing to read poetry of such quiet excellence. | ||
reviewer: Michael Bangerter. |