Another Third Poetry Book by John L. Foster

Another Third Poetry Book Reviews

• 
  Carol

  The book contains a rich variety of poems from infamous poets like Brian Moses, Wes Magee, and Valerie Bloom. Some poems tell a tale of growing up, as in 'Family Photo' (John Kitching),and 'An Old Snapshot' (Jean Kenward). The poets exclaims at the change of appearance of his father in 'Family Photo', who looks so much different from when he was a kid. The poem ends humorously by saying that his father is now 'more like something from another race', since he is no longer adorable but ageing fast.
  
  Family Photo
  John Kitching
  
  I can't believe it's my Dad
  Standing there
  his hair all golden
  his bottom bare
  two little dimples in his face
  
  When now, all fat and bald
  with straggly eyebrows
  which he just won't cut,
  he's more like somehting
  from another race.
  
  'An Old Snapshot' reminds us of the traditional nursery rhyme 'Minnie Milly and Molly and May'. 'Sand' and 'sea' hints that the girl was at the beach. It narrates the simple happiness one once had at the seaside in childhood. The poet uses questions to reinforce the influence of intangible happiness to the present. The poem is a 'tearless rhyme' reminiscing old memories and is melancholic.
  
  An old Snapshot
  Jean Kenward
  
  Who is this child, alone
  in a waste of sand and sea?
  Can hers be the flesh and bone
  that scaffold me?
  
  Is that far summer I know
  she saw the horizon clear,
  and the sun go down below
  as I do, here,
  
  And she felt through her fingers fall
  the drifting silt of time
  who exists now - if at all -
  in tearless rhyme;
  
  And I ask myself, as I stare
  at the photo of sand and sea:
  is it I who am captured there,
  or she here, in me?
  
  
  There's another one about the discovery of growing up from James Kirkup that really worths reading. It is an easy poem written in easy words, but the theme is full of wisdom.
  
  Change yourself
  James Kirkup
  
  When he was very young, the boy wanted to change
  the entire world; but
  he soon found he could not
  
  When he was grown up,
  he tried to change those
  aroudn him - relatives and friends;
  but soon found he could not.
  
  When he was very old, he saw
  how foolish he had been:
  he at last began to change himself,
  and in the end succeeded.
  
  
  The book also contains haikus, acronyms and poems about nature and small things in life.