The title of this book certainly serves to give the reader some idea of its content as it is a short book of short poems that takes us on a tour of the poet’s thoughts, his musings. But don’t let the comment on shortness draw anything away from what is contained here as it is quite a pleasant read and pleasant is vastly underrated in my opinion.
Reading the poems made me contemplative and calm, their being accessible but not shallow, the ruminations of the poet offering up a view of their mindset that invites the reader to reflect with them, by mulling over their words and their impressions.
Each poem is accompanied by a picture which serves to augment or represent what is depicted or discussed in the poem. Personally, I don’t think these are necessary and they added nothing for me; the words were more than enough but as a pictorial accompaniment, they were not a distraction.
The natural world figures strongly throughout and I think that it is this that gives the collection the feeling of being offered the chance by Bainbridge to stop and take time, and allow yourself to become lost in thought, watching the world continue on its never-yielding cycle. While sitting, you are being influenced by what you see around you, leading you to a contemplative state about your place in the world and how you and everything else fit into this all-encompassing thing.
Poems like Hidden Joy suggest how the poet’s mood can change what he notices in the world around him and Space has a parallel drawn between the poet and a tree and empty spaces and what can fill them, nature as a stimulus being key in both of these, and there are many like this in the collection.
However, there is also introspection and melancholy which hints at insecurities in poems like Safety, and I loved the opening poem, Quiet Room for the harmony but also expectation and anticipation that it offers, like another world awaits. This otherworldliness permeates the poems with references to dreams and sleep, a drifting into another realm being suggested in Dreams and A Plea to name two and I think that the references to dreams creates this sense of languor and time passing as well as whimsy.
These are simple verses: no weight of dense imagery. Its strength is in its quietness.
Scuffed Granny 