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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't like modern poetry usually. It tends to be obscure or be making in jokes I don't get, in fact most of it makes me feel stupid for not knowing what is going on. Poems From A Northern Soul is the first set of poems I've enjoyed in ages. The poems are moving, thoughtful and sensitive, while not being obscure. Every time you read them they become better and more intriguing, like staring at a smartly cut diamond (not that I've stared at many diamonds but you know what I mean?) The book's is beautifully designed too - a crisp white cover and gorgeous parchment style pages.
Format:Paperback
i agree with the other reviewer. i am generally not a fan of modern poetry either. i've always gotten john's work immediately though or at least been taken in by it. if you get a chance though you should really hear him read live as the paper version is only half the experience.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
John Siddique is one of Britain's most interesting and original poets. He probes the contradictory jumble of contemporary Britain. He reveals the bravery, contemporary, daily heroism in the courts and prisons, the towns, the urban sprawl that he clearly knows well. We're shown the State grinding down, followed by escape in the promise of the ordinary, in compassion, and in language. I love the multiple openings that come with exploring the full range of words such as "leaving."
There's an impressive range in this unassuming volume. From deeply human elegies, such as to "Kathy," to songs: "down, down, deeper and down...not yet but soon, again" to lightning-like short meditations, the poet speculates on sexual attraction, turf, walks, industrial and dockside landscapes. There are heart-breakingly brilliant propositions, such as "we'll rename the streets after their real stories: Smack Head Valley. Skinhead Avenue,/Race Riot Street. Touch me there Road. /Drug Deal Walk. First Kiss Gardens. /Pissed-up Lane. Possibility Fields."
"Visible Imprints" invites us to burn our diaries, to intimacy with "no more pushing away." Another section, "Northern Soul" talks back to the surveillance that hems in life in both Britain and the US. "Have you provided proof of identity?" asks one poem. Siddique's most lucid lines often seem to emerge, take off from overheard conversation. So does "Sheltered Accomodation" take us into prison and beyond, with a Sampson-like meditation on "the tree" underlying the shelter. "Youth Court Waiting Area" notes the similarity of Church and legal system. I find myself wondering if Siddique will someday write for theater, with his eye for drama and his ear for language.
Presence and commitment are key. Siddique has walked the walk, moves from showing the mirror and the dance to pointing towards a future where people can "lift themselves from drinking and disorder." Young fighters, "young gods of the clubs" manage "to keep clean, with no fixed abode." Why does this matter? Because "the world is on probation with them." Committed to looking behind attitude and façade and the false freedom of "Saturday night," these polished and unpretentious poems are two parts revelation to three parts stubborn hope drawn from the shadow of time, a new-old landscape, seen through "nineteen year-old eyes."
There's an impressive range in this unassuming volume. From deeply human elegies, such as to "Kathy," to songs: "down, down, deeper and down...not yet but soon, again" to lightning-like short meditations, the poet speculates on sexual attraction, turf, walks, industrial and dockside landscapes. There are heart-breakingly brilliant propositions, such as "we'll rename the streets after their real stories: Smack Head Valley. Skinhead Avenue,/Race Riot Street. Touch me there Road. /Drug Deal Walk. First Kiss Gardens. /Pissed-up Lane. Possibility Fields."
"Visible Imprints" invites us to burn our diaries, to intimacy with "no more pushing away." Another section, "Northern Soul" talks back to the surveillance that hems in life in both Britain and the US. "Have you provided proof of identity?" asks one poem. Siddique's most lucid lines often seem to emerge, take off from overheard conversation. So does "Sheltered Accomodation" take us into prison and beyond, with a Sampson-like meditation on "the tree" underlying the shelter. "Youth Court Waiting Area" notes the similarity of Church and legal system. I find myself wondering if Siddique will someday write for theater, with his eye for drama and his ear for language.
Presence and commitment are key. Siddique has walked the walk, moves from showing the mirror and the dance to pointing towards a future where people can "lift themselves from drinking and disorder." Young fighters, "young gods of the clubs" manage "to keep clean, with no fixed abode." Why does this matter? Because "the world is on probation with them." Committed to looking behind attitude and façade and the false freedom of "Saturday night," these polished and unpretentious poems are two parts revelation to three parts stubborn hope drawn from the shadow of time, a new-old landscape, seen through "nineteen year-old eyes."
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