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Reviewers' Opinions
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Extracts from reviews are also included on individual authors' pages.
 
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"How the Light Gets In" - Review in HQ Magazine no 50

6/2/2019

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'Patrick B. Osada lives in Berkshire – and I was born and bred in Berkshire...and as many poems in his new collection How The Light Gets In (Dempsey & Windle, £9) have their roots in Berkshire, this book comes into my hands already drenched in reviewer bias. The Royal County is rightly symbolized by the Oak and Hart, and these poems are equally dignified and animate, full of the tension between stillness and movement.
These lines from Warfield Visitor hint at what I mean; describing a Red Kite…
“Till, with a flick of his forked tail / he caught the breeze to head north-west. / Like nylon kites above Larks Hill, / this bird is tethered to its home: / a pull, Like Ariadne’s thread, / will draw him back to Beacon Hill / and Cowleaze Wood in distant Bucks.”

​I like the “distant Bucks” - a good handful of miles across the Thames beyond the Alfredian Burghs where the damned Mercians live...as any true Berkshire-Wessex folk will tell you. And that’s the thing, this is that rarity these days – a book of poems that, in the main, concentrate on a locality; not just its flora and fauna but also change. Here is the conclusion of Making Hay, about the 65 acre solar farm at Pingewood, Berks;
They promise they will seed a meadow here
where sheep can safely graze for thirty years,
now acres of dark windows face the sky
and on each frame a glassy panel’s ‘live’.

​So, new breed farming clearly has begun
to turn a profit harvesting the sun.

This is poetry in the tradition of John Clare, responding not just to the natural environment, but also to how it is changing. Sadly, it may have a greater impact on future readers, who may reflect upon this poetry as representing a requiem for rural England. I hope that I’m wrong. It is a good read – a refreshing landscape in a gallery full of portraits…
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  • Dempsey & Windle
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • Events
  • Authors' pages A-B
    • Veronica Aaronson
    • Derek Adams
    • Timothy Adès
    • Gary Allen
    • Moira Andrew
    • David Ashbee
    • Wanda Barford
    • Ranald Barnicot
    • Kevin Bailey
    • William Bedford
    • Philip Bentall
    • Marc Brightside
    • Trisha Broomfield
  • Authors' Pages C – G
    • Fiona Cartwright
    • Ian Caws
    • Ian Clarke
    • Stephen Claughton
    • Claudia Court
    • David Cooke
    • Alexandra Davis
    • Donall Dempsey
    • Ray Diamond
    • Scott Elder
    • Roger Elkin
    • Wendy Falla
    • Bert Flitcroft
    • Robbie Frazer
    • Dawn Gorman
  • Authors' Pages H - -O
    • Charlotte Harker
    • Richard Hawtree
    • Georgia Hilton
    • Paul Jeffcutt
    • Margaret Jennings
    • Peter W Keeble
    • Wendy Klein
    • Janet Loverseed
    • Jeremy Loynes
    • Valerie Lynch
    • Aiison Mace
    • Kyle McHale
    • Ayelet McKenzie
    • Heather Moulson
    • M.E.Muir
    • Ian Mullins
    • Patrick B Osada
  • Authors' Pages P – S
    • Linda Rose Parkes
    • Mark G Pennington
    • Nicky Phillips
    • Jenna Plewes
    • Ray Pool
    • Harriet Proudfoot
    • Polly Roberts
    • Imogen Russell Williams
    • Julie Sampson
    • Carla Scarano D'Antonio
    • Susan Jane Sims
    • Fiona Sinclair
    • Belinda Singleton & Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathleen Strafford
    • Paul Sutherland
  • Authors' Pages T – Z
    • Laura Theis
    • Brad Walker
    • Sue Wallace-Shaddad
    • J S Watts
    • Poul Webb
    • John Wheeler
    • Richard Williams
    • Simon Williams
    • Geoffrey Winch
    • Lynn Woollacott
    • Richard Woolmer
    • Mantz Yorke
    • Damon Young
  • Anthologies
  • COMPETITION
  • Reviews of our books
  • Notes
  • Contact Us