As Folktaleteller
Paul Brookes
Aficionados of the Green Man will be spellbound, as I was, by the opening sonnet in this rich and subtle collection. The immediacy and grace of Paul Brookes' portrait of the ancient nature spirit of the forest sets the tone for his acute and animated collection.
The poems flow powerfully from this auspicious beginning, drawing widely on European folklore; the poet ensuring that the presentation of each elemental being is essentially contemporary, speaking to our present moment.
In this volume composed of sonnets we find a poet adept and surefooted in the arena of this testing form.
Here are the tempting voices of nature's demon spirits or guardians, luring or trapping the young, the unwary, the vain. At key moments in this collection certain poems shine a delicate and compassionate light upon the vulnerabilities of childhood. This phrase emphasizes those sentiments: 'we fell into twig/of twilight.'
Further illuminated by wit, riddles and puns, the poet uses all the resources of language; the realm of nature is given back to us in all its beauty and terror.
Measured use of the demotic reinforces the contemporary heft of these poems which are so deeply rooted in nature, in story, in archetype and in actuality. To read and reread them is to travel an exhilarating yet rigorous journey. Experience is intently voiced, and the writerly purpose is, throughout, valid in its energies.
I've greatly enjoyed these sophisticated excursions into the realm of folklore and to encounter here personae both of nature and of human nature. These are poems drawn with fidelity from the well of legend which preserves for us the strange and pertinent depths of the human imagination.
Penelope Shuttle
13 August 2022
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