AENEAS LANDED
There was very little ground yesterday, but it is here today:
paving that materialises
the moment it is hit
by my boot
and not a second beforehand. I could say
this is God's hand. All the power there is,
weightless with cheer.
Simply, elementarily:
one foot in front of the other
as more affluent versions of myself lean overhead–
letting their sight-lines dangle down
onto placard paint bubbling,
white architraves
and disposed-of coffee stirrers.
Sidekicks for Clouds shows rare ambition and originality for a debut collection. The poems are hard-won, pared back, assured too, but not in the claims they make. Their assurance is rooted in clarity of intent, an uncompromising push to explore religious faith and experience, the presence of grace in the world. This is a fine example of a pamphlet doing what a full collection cannot easily achieve: the concentrated power of short, linked poems - in this case a sequence broken into three sections, each complete in itself – to form a coherent and memorable lyric meditation. The ambition and scope of these poems makes them intense and complex but utterly engaging, humane and tender. These are poems of the body and this world, their fragility and woundedness, but open to their transfiguration and redemption too. Sidekicks for Clouds is beautifully written and beautifully published.
