Heavenly Hurt

All of the poems in the collection have been written since the untimely and sudden passing of the poet’s father in 2010 at the age of 68 and, while only three of them (“How Like My Father’s Hands…”, “King of Fife” and “Casole”) deal with this subject directly, many, if not all of the others, can trace their emotional and spiritual roots back to that event, however remotely or circuitously.

The poet lists Seamus Heaney, John Keats, Phillip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, and Billy Collins among his favourites and his chief influences. The first two probably explain the preponderance of the sonnet form in this collection, although throughout there are other poems that are equally “structured” in one way or another, from the cryptic numerical significances of “Pauline” and “On Reading to Kill a Mockingbird to my Daughter”, for example, to the more obviously concrete approach in “Antiode”. In addition, there are unashamed homages like “Vanity” (Billy Collins) and “In Emily Dickinson’s Poetry” (Emily Dickinson!). As well as the inspiration of other poets, readers will recognise the influence of an African context, a Christian /Catholic faith and a Scottish heritage, as well as a pervading sense of pathos that is surely attributable to the premature loss of a beloved father.