A Sense of Place By Richard Rose
This new collection of poems from Richard Rose contains what would be very likely to be called place poetry. Not everyone knows what this is – at least I end up explaining it a lot to people as I have published a few place poem books of my own.
Amazon USA“A Sense of Place”
By Richard Rose
92 pages
ISBN: 978-93-88319-41-6
Cyberwit
www.cyberwit.net
Copyright 2020
Review by LB Sedlacek
This new collection of poems from Richard Rose contains what would be very likely to be called place poetry. Not everyone knows what this is – at least I end up explaining it a lot to people as I have published a few place poem books of my own.
Place poetry is what it says it is – it gives you a sense of the place that is being described in the poem or perhaps in a poetry book or chapbook as a whole. You might liken it to travel poems or something similar.
Rose’s poems take place, so to speak, in England, Scotland, India, etc. While poems can express feelings they can also express a feeling of experience as one tends to have when going somewhere.
From the poem “Hauling Net”:
“I hear chanting long before I see the men.
Along the shore their calls compete against the tide’s percussive
surge,
bidding me come, draw nearer, calling come see, and then
be one within the rhythm as man and nature here converge.”
As you read these lines, you can easily imagine men dragging in fishing nets. The way he intersperses space within his lines and makes good use of it also easily gives the image of water moving, waves coming in and out, ropes being fed through the line, etc. Rose does a great job between the dance of image and realness.
From the poem “A Landscape Never Meant for Man”:
“I scour the horizon,
but find it ill descried.
Blues and whites affiliate,
conspiring to conceal the seam
where land and sky should be defined.”
Rose’s poems move from place to place, strength to strength, from rich image to rich image. It’s easy to see why several of the poems in this collection were previously published in various publications.
Rose blends place into struggles and existence of the location, philosophical thoughts and perhaps real life happenings that define the poem itself. It’s an impressive use of balance in presentation. Poetry is wonderful for expression, and Rose definitely makes use of that.
Rose’s poems are intimate and vulnerable. He uses precise language to capture the inherent nature of the place he is writing about.
The poems are free verse but there is a use of some technique giving the language a musical like quality with deep emotional insights. Some of the poems seem confessional. There is a consistent use of grounding but powerful images.
These poems rejoice in their discoveries of place. They will show the reader a life lived fully in each one.
~LB Sedlacek is the author of the poetry collections “I’m No ROBOT,” “Words and Bones,” “Simultaneous Submissions,” “The Adventures of Stick People on Cars,” and “The Poet Next Door.” Her first poem novel, “The Blue Eyed Side,” was published last year as well as her first short story collection “Four Thieves of Vinegar & Other Short Stories.” Her mystery novel “The Glass River” was nominated for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. She writes poetry reviews for “The Poetry Market Ezine” www.thepoetrymarket.com You can find out more about her at www.lbsedlacek.com