"Sense of a Blessing" – Mandy Pannett reviews "How the Light Gets In"

This collection is called ‘How the Light Gets In’ – an apt title since the poems are full of shimmer and beings that shine. One of my favourite images is in the poem 'Elvers' where the creatures are a ‘mass of squirming grey translucency,/glass eels, whose every heartbeat can be seen.’ In 'Winter Solstice, Warfield' we have the marvellous picture of a crab apple tree whose fruit is brighter than any decoration: ‘Crab apples hang above the gate,/Sparkling, frosted on cold air:/Christmas baubles catching sun.’

Whiteness, frost, ice and cold air are recurrent motifs in this selection of Patrick Osada’s poems. He is skilful at creating not only a sense of place but an equally vivid sense of weather, especially winter weather that is windy and stormy with ‘A hard frost glinting’ in ‘bright white moonlight’ ('A Week of Frost').

Settings are evocative in this collection. Many places are named. Throughout, the backcloth is nature with its flowers, trees, animals and birds – a host of birds. Frequently the atmosphere is both magical and mysterious. Roseland is described as an ‘elemental place’ where ‘the headland fog holds fast’ and ‘Spirits and wraiths are free to roam.’ Together with the author, we feel we have returned ‘Like strangers to an ancient land’. ('Valley of the Kites').

Many beautiful poems in How the Light Gets In’ are written in the best pastoral tradition. Conversely, there is bitterness and grief at what has been lost in the name of technology and attendant materialism. The section called ‘Place’ is introduced by a quotation from Philip Larkin’s 'Going, Going' where everything special in the land may ‘linger’ but will most likely be eradicated by ‘concrete and tyres’. The new world that Patrick Osada is afraid will exist – already exists – is marginal, unwelcoming and toxic.

The final section of the collection is ‘Spiritual’. Poems here are poignant, nostalgic, concerned with mortality and sometimes fear and doubt at the thought of life stopping ‘like turning off a switch’ and there being nothing but oblivion and blackness. ('Birthday').

Overall, however, the poems in this fine collection leave me with a feeling of benediction and beauty ‘found /In birdsong, sun, sweet fragrances.’ (Lilies of the Valley). The first two stanzas of the poem 'Contact' strengthen this impression and suggest again the idea of light found in small things, light getting in through the cracks.

‘Sometimes the meaning comes in code:
Reflections on a pool; flower tints;
Sea, sky or hills as ciphers.

Or information set in tongues:
Bird call; the constant drone of bees;
Whispering grass or cold wind’s song.’

Mandy Pannett
Amazon Review
22nd August 2018