REVIEW OF 'TALKING TO LORD NEWBOROUGH' BY CHERYL SNELL

If a poem is a verbal device designed to go off in the heart (apologies to Phillip Larkin) then David G. Anthony’s graceful, contemplative second collection implodes quietly, delivering emotional truths from within well- crafted constructs. Many species of form are represented here, from a tanka string or sequence ("Five Views of Kyoto," "Summer’s End") to a roundel ("Flotsam on a Winter Tide") where chiming repetitions accompany the turning tide-- “all that drifts is gathered, going /round again.” In the way a taut string produces the purest tone, repetitions create resonance in the triolet "A Winter Funeral;" they also set up an echo of Frost’s snowy woods in "Passing Through the Woods." He invokes Frost again, in "Road Taken," a sonnet which, in the octet, comes to a different conclusion regarding destiny and choice.

The author touches on many subjects here: in the section entitled People and Places, he tells stories from his Welsh boyhood. The title poem, a wistful sonnet about memory and the circular quality of time, notes "These days the past is nearer." A railroad town in "One-Way Ticket" shows the poet that his “ties are broken beyond repair:/the line is closed and just the tracks are there.” In "Bloodlines," a portrait of Anglo-Saxon ancestors is evoked.

They’re pictured wearing baubles carved from bone,
woad-daubed and fur-clad, flaunting tribal scars.

Harsh syllables strike like successive blows and then the author asks

would they stand silent awed by all our gains---
or stricken seeing everything we’ve lost?

Among the disaster poems, the compulsive returns in the villanelle "Plague" intensify horror in an affecting way. A sense of melancholy suffuses many works, over the sacrifice of ideals, the death of people and possibilities. Regret competes with Hope as the seasons renew themselves. The author chooses to avert his eyes from the May Tree’s “garlanded decay” in the lovely "Hawthorn;" and asks the "Flower Seller"

trapped between life’s schemes
and compromises, did you sell your dreams?

He notes the loss of childhood magic in "Harry Potter," an inventive sonnet using both Italian and English structures, but writes an uplifting fable in the sonnet "Water-Bearers."

In the final section, Searching for Inspiration, the author fills poems about the writing life with humor: in a poem entitled "Triolette," he wonders “does it rhyme with get or gay?” There is a guide to sonnet-building ("Stuffing It In") that likens the form to a corset. And the search through a slush pile yields

something special: see it shine.
It coruscates: a lantern made of gold
revealing vistas formerly unseen.
I sense the presence of a noble soul
who dares to go where others have not been.
Ah, now I recollect: it’s one of mine!

The poet leaves us with "Bird’s Eye View," a Petrarchan sonnet that hopes to “wring/ some essence from our interaction” and “stun my critics.”

Mission accomplished.

Words to Say, illustrated by Merfyn C Davies, was published by Pen Press Publishers Ltd in 2002 and is available from Amazon in the UK, in North America
and Japan. 


Residents of the USA and Canada can order direct from
 the North American distributor.

SOME COMMENTS ON WORDS TO SAY

“It's a wonderful book, truly.  I've been picking it up and setting it down and picking it up again for the past two or three weeks.  Every time I read it I find something I hadn't seen before. " For My Daughter" and "On the Suicide of a Friend" are my current favourites. I may have others tomorrow. The voice is gentle, soft-spoken and perceptive. I strongly recommend it.  You should be very pleased, David. This is wonderful, wonderful poetry. Thank you.”

- Jaimes Alsop (President, Alsop Review) 

“Regulars of The Gazebo will be familiar with the work of David Anthony, and his distinctive way with traditional forms like the sonnet and triolet.  'Words to Say' is a collection of his work with subjects ranging from Bob Dylan to horrific news stories, his native Wales to the cybernet.  I was aware, while reading these poems, of his mastery of rhyme and metre, and overall, a voice of great dignity and control.  There are many moving poems here, but also a section called Chestnut Puree of some wickedly funny ones.  The presentation is excellent, with some lovely colour plates.  Altogether, a welcome addition to my poetry bookshelf.”

 “David Anthony's "Words to Say is a wonderful book, full of all the right things that poetry ought to have: seriousness, moral weight, feeling, complexity, music, without any pretentiousness or self-consciousness or wrong notes.  What the poet does with formal patterns is deft and casual, even a potentially hard one for English, like the Petrarchan sonnet.  He manages to get real thought into the triolet, and he makes it feel natural. His rhymes, whether perfect or slant, seem inevitable. It's good to find among these poems several that are already familiar from some of the best sites on the internet; the unfamiliar ones are just as stunning and immediately inviting.  The Foreword by Helena Nelson gets it right when it notes Anthony's "delight in his craft."  This is beautiful work, enhanced by the art; I'm grateful to have it on this side of the Atlantic!”

“The first thing one notices about this book is that it is beautifully made, handsomely illustrated by Anthony's fellow Welshman, Merfyn Davies.  Upon delving into it, one discovers to one's delight that these very formal poems are as well made as the artefact in which they reside.  As the American poet Alicia Stallings notes on the jacket, "David Anthony's work shows that a poem doesn't have to raise its voice to get our attention, and that control is not the opposite of feeling."  The author is a poet of a refined and mature sensibility, and I highly recommend this collection.”