'Truly a marvellous collection ... There is balm for the soul, fire for the belly, a cooling compress for the fevered brow, solace for the wounded, an arm around the lonely shoulder - the whole collection is a matchless compound of hug, tonic and kiss' Stephen Fry.
Sometimes only a poem will do. These poetic prescriptions and wise words of advice offer comfort, delight and inspiration for all; a space for reflection, and that precious realization - I'm not the only one who feels like this.
In the years since he first had the idea of prescribing short, powerful poems for all manner of spiritual ailments, William Sieghart has taken his Poetry Pharmacy around the length and breadth of Britain, into the pages of the Guardian, onto BBC Radio 4 and onto the television, honing his prescriptions all the time. This pocket-sized book presents the most essential poems in his dispensary: those which, again and again, have really shown themselves to work. Whether you are suffering from loneliness, lack of courage, heartbreak, hopelessness, or even from an excess of ego, there is something here to ease your pain.
'The book is delightful; it rightly resituates poetry in relation to its biggest and most serious task: helping us to live and die well' Alain de Botton.
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[When despair for the world grows in me / and I wake in the night at the least sound / in fear of what my life and children's lives may be / I go and lie down where the wood drake / rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS BY WENDELL BERRY]***
(@ParticularBooks, 28 September 2017, e-book, 151 pages, copy from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed, compiled by @emergencypoet, various authors)
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This anthology reminds me of the Being Alive series from Bloodaxe Books. Only on a smaller scale. I really enjoyed this anthology which offers a good selection of more recent poetry and older poems by the likes of Maya Angelou. Some of my favourite poems and poets around found in these pages and it was a treat to revisit old friends such as Celia Ceilia by Adrian Mitchell, Everything is going to be All Right by Derek Mahon, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver and Chemotherapy by Julia Darling. I also discovered some new voices. My only issue is that the anthology is too short. There is only one poem for each theme. I would have been happy to read a few for each one.
