*****

John Mole’s Gold to Gold reviewed by Isabel Bermudez

Gold to Gold by John Mole. £10. Shoestring Press. ISBN: 978-1912524532

John Mole’s collection Gold to Gold surveys ground covered with a clear eye. From this rewarding collection, coming late in terms of poetic output and following, without being a complete break, from his equally sustaining collection : ’Gesture and Counterpoints’ ( Shoestring, 2017) it is gen-tleness that springs first to mind and ease with depth. Moles’ affinity with jazz is both implied in the poems and stated clearly in interviews elsewhere. He is indeed something of a jazz connoisseur, as evidenced by the deftness of his line breaks, his skill at making a poem ‘sing’ in the silence of the pause.

He kicks off with ‘The Counter-Drift’ where praxis and poiesis are paired. Poetry is the ‘liberating course’. The rest of this collection which ‘drifts ‘against the prevailing current…