Review
'On the cover of this collection of poetry by Carlisle people is a picture. Steps cut into a bank and overgrown, lead to a small gate that is slightly ajar. Beyond is a lush field and the open sky. The picture is an appropriate image for Cumbria Community Arts Project. They are a group of people dedicated to giving local people an artistic voice. .Into a Gathering. contains fifty poems by some thirty or so writers who have never been published before. Many of these poems are inventive, original and effective. Deborah Tyler-Bennett writes how: .Carlisle Market hosts a midnight concert by Jimmy Dyer.s ghost.. .Passing strays rub right through his legs.. His .Crumbled notes perfecting, telling the bees of how it was, of how it always is.. .Check-Out. by Jenny B J Sloane describes an all-too-familiar scene: .In dead efficient queues at twenty tills the check-out logs and processes our goods.. .An errant ray of sunlight shows we stand in a galaxy of skin flakes. and the final line; .And chimneys smoking in the silent rain. hints at a check-out that is far more ominous than queuing at Tesco. Robert Carson describes the drowning of Mardale: .As the water laps over the village that.s dead; And the sheep, never once, even lifted their head . . .. The church was the last building to fall and the days when the shepherds and the Ullswater Foxhounds would gather at The Dun Bull are gone forever. Heather Bradley, ex-mayor and Labour Leader on Carlisle City Council, has two satirical, political poems. Redundancy Waltz, inevitably, is dedicated to Margaret Thatcher. .Too old at forty, they showed me the door Too old at forty, won.t work anymore.. The people that have made the wealth are cast on the scrap-heap and at the same time: .They rant in the Commons, they sleep in the Lords They snore in the High Court, they plot on their boards.. Another poem .She said, I said. is an all too familiar indictment of the whole tribe of men: .All men are bastards, she said. and according to the poem, they.re a pretty feckless, hopeless bunch. One accusation and defence reads: .They can do only one thing at a time, she said That.s not true, I said. Prove it, she said They can watch sport and drink beer, I said.. A Chinese student, Yiyuou Unmo, writes a poem of unrequited love to Carolyn. .You grip my heart like chopsticks.. .Red papers taste like honey when you cook.. But, sadly, the poem concludes .You are such a cruel woman.. Adam Grant writes a more hopeful poem about an engagement made on Hadrian.s Wall between Laura and Rob. He suggests that like the wall they will weather through time and that .Those that matter stand fast . For you are the love that lasts.. The poems deal with everything from buying school uniform to growing dandelions, from being a Battle of Britain pilot to gazing on Niagara Falls. Few collections contain such a casual diversity of themes and voices. But this is the strength of this amateur collection of verse by local people. It presents their thoughts, feelings and reflections in all their individual variety and form. It shows that everyone has something valuable to say. This is the main purpose of the Cumbria Community Arts Project.' - Steve Matthews, Bookcase.
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