The new collection from Pete Lancaster
Pour your favourite drink, sit back in your most comfortable chair and settle back to enjoy this book. Crossing by Pete Lancaster, his second book, following his Blue Bridge in 2009, is a collection to savour.
On the face of it the same themes are evident, most prominently memories and philosophical musings prompted by wanderings in the watery edgelands of Wakefield, like in the title poem for instance:
"I crossed to the ice-laced washlands edge,
searching paths made strange by snow."
Wanderings which often lead to a final image or an event of subtle significance,
"...There was the frozen lake,
and there, as the sun held fast at noon,
the fox aflame quickening across the pane
of trackless white, never to look back."
But beyond these themes and pre-occupations there's a greater determination to explore the fullest extent of metaphor and symbol, and like the blackbird in In Ambleside Churchyard, Pete Lancaster is opening his throat and giving it all he's got, which he does to great effect.
How to Draw an Apple begins prosaically, "First sharpen your pencil," and develops with a typically tender simile, "Caressing gently as an approaching kiss/ the cheek of it." and then finally blooms with three lines which suggest that this poem is about much more than an art class:
"And then you'll capture it,
expose the sin deep under the skin,
discover the deep sad heart at its core."
This confidence in the way he handles his material is evident in New Year which lists observations around the trip to to an airport and eventual flight. But its conclusion:
"...the beds of cloud below us
On the face of it the same themes are evident, most prominently memories and philosophical musings prompted by wanderings in the watery edgelands of Wakefield, like in the title poem for instance:
"I crossed to the ice-laced washlands edge,
searching paths made strange by snow."
Wanderings which often lead to a final image or an event of subtle significance,
"...There was the frozen lake,
and there, as the sun held fast at noon,
the fox aflame quickening across the pane
of trackless white, never to look back."
But beyond these themes and pre-occupations there's a greater determination to explore the fullest extent of metaphor and symbol, and like the blackbird in In Ambleside Churchyard, Pete Lancaster is opening his throat and giving it all he's got, which he does to great effect.
How to Draw an Apple begins prosaically, "First sharpen your pencil," and develops with a typically tender simile, "Caressing gently as an approaching kiss/ the cheek of it." and then finally blooms with three lines which suggest that this poem is about much more than an art class:
"And then you'll capture it,
expose the sin deep under the skin,
discover the deep sad heart at its core."
This confidence in the way he handles his material is evident in New Year which lists observations around the trip to to an airport and eventual flight. But its conclusion:
"...the beds of cloud below us
rolling away to infinity like a beach
demonstrates that these poems are no longer designed to stay rooted in one particular locale. We encounter interior monologues from Van Gogh and a sniper, investigations into the sinister environs of the Cupboard Under the Stairs and the anger occasioned by an encounter whilst taking a trip up The Narrow Valley. And always, these poems repay a second, third and subsequent readings to fully appreciate their nuances and well-crafted insights into how we are in 2013.
In this volume, Pete Lancaster has certainly made a crossing as he is now well beyond the tentative; he is striding confidently into the realm of being a notable poet, one for whom greater recognition is due. Get hold of a copy of Crossing and in years to come you can claim to have been party to that journey.
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