Speaking to Crows 

"Speaking to Crows" by Richard Woolmer
ISBN 978-1-907435-77-1
15cm x 21mm, 55 pages
RRP £8.00

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Speaking to Crows is Richard Woolmer's debut collection, published in 2019. Richard's gentle humour and irony illuminate issues and episodes in his own life and that of historical figures and issues with a light, very English touch.  

Patrick B. Osada reviews Speaking to Crows in SOUTH Poetry Magazine:

For many years, I have been a member of the same poetry group as Richard Woolmer. It  has been a delight and a privilege to have witnessed the birth of many of the poems contained in this, his first collection. The themes found in Speaking to Crows are eclectic and diverse — from childhood to an absent-minded old age:
“Why am I here?” / he would ask  / not just in a philosophical way / but because he could not remember / why he had come upstairs.
                                                                          (The End of the Road).
 
There are also poems about memorial poppies, Nagasaki; distant galaxies and the  contemporary world of “spin” :
Today we have shuffling of words. Yesterday /  we had daily truth. And tomorrow morning /                        we shall have what they call post truth. But today, / today we have shuffling of words.
                                                                              (Shuffling Of Words)
 
Much of the book is set somewhere between dream and reality — a world seen through a prism of benign, surreal humour, reminiscent of the best Lear and Carroll. Here we meet an assortment of characters, ranging from an English King to President Trump :
 He was big, / a mad hatter of a man / with small inquisitive hands / living in a room full of oxymorons / and non sequiturs /  gold taps, ticking time bombs / and no books.
                                                                                      (Mock Turtle)
                                                                               
Elsewhere, rubbing shoulders, are the Rev. Spooner, ashes in an urn, a fan of an unfashionable football team, a TV weather girl and a besmirched statue... Prince Harry also puts in an appearance as does The Bayeux Tapestry and the notorious “Uritrottoir” of Paris.
 
This is a wonderful first collection introducing a unique new voice — I thoroughly recommend it!
 
Patrick B. Osada      
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