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Wave
Pat Borthwick was brought up on the canals and waterways of Britain and now lives in rural North Yorkshire. She first trained in visual arts and worked for many years as a ceramic sculptor. She has been writer in residence for prisons, libraries, schools and hospitals as well as for a canal, a chalk cliff and a cabbage.
Wave was one of the winning submissions in the Templar Pamphlet & Collection Awards in 2007 and was followed by her excellent collection, Admiral Fitzroy's Barometer, in 2008.
Wave was one of the winning submissions in the Templar Pamphlet & Collection Awards in 2007 and was followed by her excellent collection, Admiral Fitzroy's Barometer, in 2008.
- GenresPoetry
32 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 2007
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 20, 2014
For reasons known only to Goodreads, Wave by Pat Borthwick, published by Templar Poetry (ISBN 9781906285012), was not on their database when I read it. The fact it is now is a good thing because this a powerful pamphlet of seventeen clear-sighted, frequently moving,crystal sharp poems.
The emotional timbre of the poems rises and falls like the wave of the title. Their subject matter is various: a visit that may, or may not, be a good thing, the gaining of sexual knowledge, conjoined-twins, trout-tickling, a poem to a dead baby, egg collectors, but throughout this varied collection there is a more than a tinge of sorrow, a sense of what might have been.
This is an extract from the opening and slightly more upbeat poem, "Visit", an exploration of a positive visitation:
" VISIT
Had I known you were there
I would have knocked softly
or slipped off my shoes.
I watch your wings open and close
like hands
uncertain of prayer,
your plumed antennae
write manuscripts
around the whitewashed walls."
Lyrical, thoughtful, beautifully crafted and frequently moving - it really is worth checking out these poems.
The emotional timbre of the poems rises and falls like the wave of the title. Their subject matter is various: a visit that may, or may not, be a good thing, the gaining of sexual knowledge, conjoined-twins, trout-tickling, a poem to a dead baby, egg collectors, but throughout this varied collection there is a more than a tinge of sorrow, a sense of what might have been.
This is an extract from the opening and slightly more upbeat poem, "Visit", an exploration of a positive visitation:
" VISIT
Had I known you were there
I would have knocked softly
or slipped off my shoes.
I watch your wings open and close
like hands
uncertain of prayer,
your plumed antennae
write manuscripts
around the whitewashed walls."
Lyrical, thoughtful, beautifully crafted and frequently moving - it really is worth checking out these poems.
Displaying 1 of 1 review