CLOSE -UP
Quentin Cowdry
Hedgehog Poetry Press 2025
ISBN 978-1-916830-47-9
This pamphlet of twenty-two poems won a Hedgehog Press first pamphlet competition in 2023.
The poems are carefully structured in regular stanzas, with well-paced, rhythmical lines and deft use of enjambment. The various subjects and themes, which differentiate and unite the work, are built on close observation of the world, of nature and human experience, and how we relate to and respond to it.
In ‘TOO SOON, THE FLYPAST’S OVER’ the narrator stands outside what they observe – ‘the kids’, ‘a couple’, a ‘man in a donkey jacket’ – but sees above the geese ‘streaming westward’ that ‘ink the wind with poems’ then vanish. The completed poem holds the world that is now gone.
Emotion, controlled by calm almost understated phrasing, underpins these poems and unifies the collection: in ‘THRESHOLD’ and ‘INHERITANCE’ a parent, grieving that their child has grown up, is aware this must happen and they must let go as the child is now ready, ‘eyes that used to wilt under an adult’s gaze .. are steady now’.
Several poems are expressions of regret for missed opportunities to understand, live another maybe better life, and for things lost that will not return: in ‘MAKING PEACE WITH LANDEG’ the poet hears that someone they knew, but was not impressed by, has died and then discovers through reading his work that this man was, ‘sharp … vital’. A ‘BEDTIME TALE’ is a rueful, affectionate reflection on how a couple’s relationship changes, has to change, over the years, ‘We are never wholly naked now’. In ‘COLD CASE’ a painful memory persistently returns when a seven-year-old boy tells him: ‘You’re not my Dad anymore’, which is another example of how we all have to live with things that cannot be undone.
The collection ends with two poems about death, the most unavoidable of all regretful events: in ‘NOT QUITE LAID UP’ an old man, once a sailor, still pays close attention to the weather outside, which he comprehends even though he will never go out there again. ‘LAST WORD’ addresses the indignities the poet’s father endures, slowly dying with dementia, countered by his sudden affectionate awareness, ‘Good to see you, son’ and this direct, precious contact makes the world more alive and beautiful, ‘Walking, watery-eyed, to the car, an August sky seemed bluer.’ ..
The final poem, ‘THE MOUNTAIN PINES’, resolutely observes that, ‘Finally, all come to this cloud-close place’, where the trees tell the writer what it takes to live, by accepting the earth’s indifference to our anxieties and desires, ‘We pines know about peace .. It’s like the sky: endless, chill and tastes of nothing’. This calm acceptance that we are alone is offset by the poems that precede it, about how we must make the best of our lives on the planet, see as much of it as possible, and never forget to know and value our human companions.
Chris Hardy’s poems and reviews have been widely published online and in numerous magazines. His next poetry collection will be published by Shoestring Press later this year (2025). He is secretary of the Chichester Poetry Stanza and a member of the poetry and music band Little Machine.