Dynamo Memory

by PaulArcher (Author), Paul Archer (Author), Paul Archer (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2018

  $10.21

  A compelling collection of poems that are evocative, poignant and insightful. Sharply-focused scenes from Japan and Spain are set against memories of an English childhood. Eloquently written in an engaging style that will appeal to a wide range of readers.
  The dynamo that powers these poems is memory. Scenes from Japan and Spain are finely detailed with a fresh perspective. The lemons in Lemons on the Lemon Tree are `not the lemons money can buy', not pristine, but coarse and wild like `rough outlaws', while the sun in Summer in Mallorca is not one seen in a holiday brochure but `sheers off dimensions/and desiccates the orange trees' leaves'. In Japan, cherry blossom viewing turns into a sake drinking party with `white petals/red faces' under trees that like `can-can dancers/reveal their blossom's lace', and in a tranquil garden we lose our senses `in the carp's stealth/circling upon itself/within its absences'.
  The same keen eye is turned on memories from the distant past, from a family day by the sea becoming a battle against the elements the wade out and the brave/breath, then the plunge into steely cold' in Goring-by-Sea , to the football team photograph in the The First Eleven with the goalie `who let in/more goals than we ever got close to scoring' proudly clutching the ball. A memory of cycling home from school on a winter evening, pedalling hard to turn the bike's dynamo, becomes in the title poem of Dynamo Memory a metaphor for capturing elusive memories in words: `If I pause the light glimmers down./The harder I push the more the lamp shines.'