Broken Stories by Reuben Woolley, published by 20/20 Vision Publishing, 2017

Innovative in form, though some may think of ee cummings. In this work there are no capital letters.
Few full stops, never at the end of poems and no page numbers.

Music is integral to Reuben’s Broken Stories. At its centre the myth of Eurydice. At the start “& all that jazz”, the poet plays a horn.

do they play
jazz
in your heaven
the heat
rising
where bird flies
quiet

“bird” perhaps a reference to the late innovative saxophone player and composer Charlie Parker.
The notion of looking back as a form of loss, the recovery of the dead through grief. Stories of the broken enacted by broken lines by a shore, in flight. Ancient stories hinted at like “splinterman”. Well worth a google.

Often modern poetry is seen as having a close kinship with jazz, especially in the jazz poets of the 1930s and 40s. It is important to read Reuben’s poetry out loud to catch his rhythms, intonations and lyricism. And the repeated references to silence, bone, blood, sand and sky. Poetry to be reread. Poetry rich in reference, resonance and connection. A must buy. I look forward to reading future work by this stunning poet.

via Ecce Panis, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

via “Playing for the Win”… and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

via “Playing for the Win”… and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“Silence” featured in Visual Verse.

https://visualverse.org/submissions/silence-2/

via No Baloney Sandwiches, a poem …. and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

via “ARIVA” … and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

via The Postman Does Not Deliver

via My Night’s Two Hands

In the universe of this exquisite collection, Paul Brookes merges desire and menace, the nature of aging and hidden despair to show the wonders of the human experience filtered through several varieties of darkness. Brooks is too cagey to fully tip his hand, but repeated readings of these poems reward the reader with new and sometimes breathtaking epiphanies. “Life is boring when there’s no edge to it,” one of his characters observes. This is a truth in which Brookes delights. You – yes, you — need to read this book.

Jeff Weddle, author of Comes to This and Heart of the Broken World

Brookes is a good poet but you must read all parts of his sequence poems to get at his genius that weaves in and around each stanza and leaves you in slack jawed awe. His words are often sexy, humorous, clever, surprising, multi-layered and mysterious, sometimes at the same time.
“His blood keeps their house lubricated and his steady rhythm beats through their working day.” In another poem, “Longiforum lilies attract askance bees to their sacred perfume chimneys.” There is brilliance and beauty here but always “a swan’s wing away from brokenness.”
Belinda Subraman,
Author of Blue Rooms, Black Holes, White Lights

Another fabulous read by the indefatigable Yorkshire poet, Paul Brookes. This time with his singular style and and acute insight into the human condition, Paul takes us through five stories, pictures of the great and small ironies of life drawn as we observe the daily routines, rituals and reactions in lives where birds have jam sessions on rooftops, mausoleums live on fridge doors, the memory of a touch stays with the skin; lives where hands are telling and people hunger, give what’s not wanted and take what’s not given. In short, Life with all its pathos and ethos. She Needs that Edge is well worth your time and pennies.

Jamie Dedes, poet and editor of “The BeZine” and “The Poet by Day.”