Description
Author: John Bowker
ISBN: 978-0-9811606-1-0
Dimension: 5.5 x 8.5″
Number of Pages: 148
Synopsis: John Bowker’s poems and translations have been published in many places. They are gathered here in a single volume for the first time. The translations are made from poems that come from different parts of the world, ranging from the Middle East to India, China and Japan.
Martyn Halsall –
“John Bowker brings to his poetry a life of international scholarship, and this creates problems in communication. The abstract theologian seems always to be overshadowing, even eclipsing, the poet. Rare concrete images (“Rose tapping on window in a winter world”) or neat metaphysical conceits “Time prosecutes, but I will be defence”) offer meagre compensation among too many poems that begin along the lines of “The illusion does not need reiteration”.
The sources, ranging from a 17th century gazetteer to Buddhist translations, are intriguing, and the poet’s learning is immense, but essentially this is poetry as fog.”
-Martyn Halsall is poetry editor of Third Way, and communications adviser to Blackburn
diocese.