Review of ‘A Pocketful of Chalk’ by Claire Booker

Evans the Death, the undertaker, laughs high and aloud in his sleep and curls up his toes as he sees, upon waking fifty years ago, snow lie deep on the goosefield behind the sleeping house; and he runs out into the fields where his mother is making Welshcakes in the snow, and steals a fistful of snowflakes and currants and climbs back to bed to eat them cold and sweet under the warm, white clothes while his mother dances in the snow kitchen crying out for her lost currants.

Paul Brookes takes the reader on a nature journey opening with Wolf Eye going through a rotten gate and up flagstones. The narrator splish-slashes paving slabs sending concrete waves and ripples. Inventive metaphor is explored. ‘Trees become lampstands ready for the moonlight bulb.’ ‘Grass is mute. River is dumb.’ Brilliant imagery is formed with light, bones and colour. Moods are created with a mop bucket. The sky becomes a skull with the moon as one eye, and the sun as the other. Wolf Eye is a nature collection that won’t disappoint. One that poetry lovers can dip in and out of anytime.

Patricia M Osborne Poet, Short Story Writer, and Novelist.

If you wish to buy a copy of Paul’s new collection here’s the link: https://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/product-page/wolf-eye-paul-brookes