RIVER LANE
by Simon Cockle

Our reviewer wants to keep re-reading Simon Cockle's first poetry collection. 

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Simon Cockle’s first collection is a beautifully produced book published by Arenig Press. I have noticed that this publisher, based in Wales, has of late found some startling and skillful voices, including Mr Cockle. I particularly liked the sequence set on the Isle of Sheppey where Cockle’s poem celebrates the spirit of place in his evocation of a Saxon princess in 'Minster Abbey Gatehouse Museum';  

 

“She/ exists despite the tyranny/ of now, the new…”

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He is not confined to celebrating the genus loci, his eye also finds the importance of small things that are charged in emotional relevance as in 'Matters' where the poet examines objects in a drawer in his father’s desk;  

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“…pushing it shut, I left the room/ with something of his: a memory/ of precious things and stationary”

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This is an absorbing collection worth reading more than once and each time you will discover new things.

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Get it:

Simon Cockle – River Lane

Arenig Ltd, November 2018

978-1-9998491-2-2
Buy from Arenig 
£8.99

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