'A Hudson View' - Touching the Heart

 by Vivien Steels

 

 

Yesterday ‘A Hudson View’ - Volume 1 Number 3 - Summer 2007 (edited by Amitabh Mitra and published by Victoria Valentine) arrived in my post box from South Africa, waiting to be opened. I found the size, 12 ½ ins x 8 ½ ins/310 mm x 220 mm, just bigger than A4 size, very attractive, especially with the beautiful mermaid artwork by Pamela Delli Colli on the cover and back page - the front cover just exudes summer magic.

 

Andrea R. Tucker has artwork on the front and back interior covers equally fascinating. I wasn't surprised to read that she used to watch her grandfather sculpting metal, because her images, which I think may be created in pencil, charcoal and pastel, are monochrome and give the feeling of sculptures. I was especially absorbed by ‘Dream in the Night’.

 

In ‘A Hudson View’ there is such an eclectic mix of poetry with a myriad of themes, formats, structures, metres and styles, which reflects its world-wide status. The poems here touch the heart in as many ways and poetry should touch the heart.

 

One poem that really made me feel what the poet wanted to say was ‘My Hero’ by Ramendra Kumar. It made me remember my own father and it is what I would have wanted to say to him, but he died before I could – ‘I am sorry,/But I love you more than anyone ever can.’

 

I loved ‘Ninth-Year Mammogram’ by Maryann Downing. It reminded me of Julian of Norwich’s meditation on a hazelnut and wondered if this had inspired the poem, for Maryann does refer to the Resurrection and God. The phrase ‘all seems to be well’ echoes Julian of Norwich’s repeated phrases ‘ All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well’. It is a powerful poem with a wonderful first and last line, the hazelnut being ‘all that is made’ in the mystics words and here, in Maryann’s words, is ‘the hazelnut of my world’, the very inner part of her being, which is exposed when facing the real threat of cancer.

 

I was drawn in by Don Kingfisher Campbell’s originality in his poems ‘Brothers’ and ‘Campbell’s Travels’. A poet should see what is ordinary and translate it through her/his own senses creating something extra-ordinary, which Don does here in ‘Brothers’. He is absorbed by the grass that grows in the city, sometimes pushing through concrete and in the last verse shows how close he feels to nature, because blades of grass will eventually become him, in his eyes.

 

‘Campbell’s Travels’ plays on the classic novel ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ by Jonathon Swift. I loved the first and last couplet – the beginning and ending of a poem are so important and especially the tenth couplet ‘I left the Earth behind,/and started playing marbles with the stars’.

 

I have come across Jan Oskar Hansen’s poems before and found his ‘April Leaving’ poem poignant and like the prose-like format of his poetry.

 

Dr Prasentjtt Maiti has four poems on his page – ‘Across’, ‘Whitsuntide’, ‘Carnations’, and ‘Remembering’ - I was drawn in by all of them and to me they are exquisite poems, touching my heart.

 

Finally Christine Bruness writes about ‘Alley Cat’ and being an avid cat lover, I drank in this poem, with its sharp observations and soft centre. I have read Christine’s biography at the back and realise she and her husband, Richard, have two cats, but welcome strays to their home to be fed. This kindness shines through and her sensitivity continues with her poem ‘Fragile’ using the metaphor of an egg within a fragile shell to denote a person’s vulnerability.

 

I could keep talking about individual poets and their poems. In this review I have tried to give a flavour of the poets and their work in this beautifully produced and edited poetry magazine.  Order one to read yourself!

 

Vivien Steels