D & W PUBLISHING - BOOKS, PAMPHLETS AND POEMS
  • DEMPSEY & WINDLE
  • 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
    • David Bleiman
    • Marc Brightside
    • Trisha Broomfield
  • Authors' Pages C – G
    • Fiona Cartwright
    • Ian Caws
    • Ian Clarke
    • Mary Chuck
    • Stephen Claughton
    • Claudia Court
    • David Cooke
    • Alexandra Davis
    • Donall Dempsey
    • Ray Diamond
    • Tony Earnshaw
    • 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
    • Sue Johns
    • 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
    • Colin Pink
    • Jenna Plewes
    • Ray Pool
    • Harriet Proudfoot
    • Polly Roberts
    • Imogen Russell Williams
    • Julie Sampson
    • Carla Scarano D'Antonio
    • Richard Schwartz
    • Susan Jane Sims
    • Fiona Sinclair
    • Belinda Singleton & Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathleen Strafford
    • Paul Surman
    • Paul Sutherland
  • Authors' Pages T – Z
    • Cherrie Taylor
    • 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
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • Reviews of our books
  • Events
  • Notes
  • Contact Us
Reviewers' Opinions
published with our thanks
Extracts from reviews are also included on individual authors' pages.
 
Scroll down to find full reviews, as well as extracts, which are posted in chronological order.

Review of "Changes" by Patrick Osada - D A Prince

27/9/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Patrick Osada — Changes. 
​
Dempsey & Windle, 2017. 72 pp. £7.99  ISBN 978-1-907435-36-2


The final poem is often the best way into a collection and Changes supports this view. The first stanza of ‘Anniversary’ runs “Uncertain that my memory serves me well—/ my nose pressed to the window of the past/ for images that flicker like old film/ with action blurred and features lost to chance.”. This brings together Osada’s approach to his themes throughout Changes’ three sections— Seasonal, At a Time of Unrest, and Keepsake — together with his preferred use of regular metrical form, often rhymed. Here the half rhyme (past/chance) has a pleasing lightness of touch, avoiding the heaviness that can sometimes come with full rhyme.
Osada’s presentation of the calendar year through plants and weather is both immediate and also layered in memory and questions: on seeing a fox at mid-day ‘… we all rubbed our eyes at what we’d seen.’ In ‘Last Reunion’ the geese whose annual visit marked the year leave, only to be replaced - ‘… men came with plans:/ Theodolites cast shadows over land.’. The then/now continuum/contrast is a unifying feature — childhood memories confronted by present-day reality. In ‘Shards’ Osada shows us men, working by hand, fitting a plate glass window into a local store, and then the modern version: machines, vacuum suction cups, and glazing that seals life inside city tower blocks. This layering of time works particularly well in ‘Monuments’, - ‘Immortalized in bronze, he’s caught mid-fight,/ rushing to catch the Hull to London train/ as if it were that Saturday in May/ when what he saw and wrote secured his fame.’ No need to name the poet or the writing here; Osada trusts his readers.
This collection answers its own question: ‘How do we keep alive what once we were?’ (from ‘Lost Boy’). Attention to changes and the continuing work of transforming these into words hold everything together.

D A Prince (SOUTH Magazine No 56)
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Contributors:

    Here we publish comments by readers and reviewers about our books, as we receive them. If you want to send us a comment on a particular book, for possible inclusion on this page, please send it to us through our CONTACT page.

    Archives

    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    August 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Picture
  • DEMPSEY & WINDLE
  • 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
    • David Bleiman
    • Marc Brightside
    • Trisha Broomfield
  • Authors' Pages C – G
    • Fiona Cartwright
    • Ian Caws
    • Ian Clarke
    • Mary Chuck
    • Stephen Claughton
    • Claudia Court
    • David Cooke
    • Alexandra Davis
    • Donall Dempsey
    • Ray Diamond
    • Tony Earnshaw
    • 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
    • Sue Johns
    • 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
    • Colin Pink
    • Jenna Plewes
    • Ray Pool
    • Harriet Proudfoot
    • Polly Roberts
    • Imogen Russell Williams
    • Julie Sampson
    • Carla Scarano D'Antonio
    • Richard Schwartz
    • Susan Jane Sims
    • Fiona Sinclair
    • Belinda Singleton & Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathryn Southworth
    • Kathleen Strafford
    • Paul Surman
    • Paul Sutherland
  • Authors' Pages T – Z
    • Cherrie Taylor
    • 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
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • Reviews of our books
  • Events
  • Notes
  • Contact Us