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Reviewed Book: Songs of My Life and Death by Peter Hartley,
Grosvenor House Publishing Limited, May, 2023

by Susan Jarvis Bryant
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Songs of My Life and Death is a treasure trove of poetic gems. It is a splendid and varied collection that appeals to the senses, engages the brain, and touches the heart. Hartley weaves a rich tapestry of smooth and mellifluous language to create tangible images of life and death in memorable scenes. His scrupulously crafted verse transcends the page with joy, sadness, wit, and wisdom.  Many poems speak of the human condition in stanzas that skim higher plains with an insight that fires the imagination and sings to the soul.
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The book is dedicated to the memory of the poet’s beloved Dina who fought a brave battle with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). Dina’s selflessness and strength of character and the poet’s love for her shine. We learn through the poet’s words what a remarkable lady Dina was. Her plight and her courage have inspired many of the book’s poems in words that speak humbly with a stark honesty that is admirable. Mourning Sickness is one such poem. It begins with the question:
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Can anybody say how long it lasts,
This numbness that deceives while it relieves
The harrowed brain?
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It is a question many will ask in the midst of grief.
There are lots of unanswered questions surrounding the cruelty of MND. Hartley addresses the shrinking nature of some when faced with another’s trauma in a piece called “The Wheelchair.”  This poem speaks of neighbors who remain silent during times of trouble. It is a poem that addresses the pitfalls of a society that turns its back on the hardship of others all too often. It asks pertinent and powerful questions that encourage the reader to think… deeply:
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How is this neighbourly? How do we sleep
At night? How righteous is it to keep
Ourselves so utterly, completely to
Ourselves and make a virtue of it too?
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As with all of Hartley’s poems, the lines flow flawlessly with enjambment used to excellent effect. The poetic devices employed in every poem always serve to enhance the poet’s message. The questions the poet poses in poems about Dina are philosophical and enlightening. A quiet wisdom whispers softly between their lines.
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Love is a subject the poet tackles from a very different perspective in a series of ten sonnets titled “Clare.” These exquisite sonnets are written with a raw sensitivity drawing upon history, architecture, mythology, and figures from classic literature to tell the story of a schoolboy’s first love. They speak of the potent effect of beauty’s wonder on those unprepared for its life-changing charms. Every sonnet tells a story. “Innocence and Inexperience” (one of my favorites) draws upon the rejection of Thomas Hardy’s Farmer Boldwood to make this illuminating observation:
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For blameless, how could she have known? No-one
Could ever have foreseen the mischief done
By what seem harmless acts or words. Spellbound,
Such power as he in helpless beauty found,
Too blindly wrenched from solitude confined,
Too soon restored, to solitude resigned.
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This series brings to the reader the wild beauty of the moors with pathetic fallacy used to superb effect. Most importantly, it brings a heart-touching understanding of one of the many facets of the complex subject of love. “A Return to the Moor” (the closing sonnet in the series) is a poem that draws upon each of the preceding sonnets to depict a delicate and poignant conclusion. These words are a prime example of Hartley’s light and graceful touch:
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The autumn now: encroaching bracken, bent
Grass and the withered fescue round the tor
And where the thready tormentil once lay
The birds were silent and the summer spent,
And something died upon the moor that day
Still-born, the day it died upon the moor.
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The poet’s palpable love and respect for animals also shines through in his poetry. Animals feature highly in this book—“Animals and Pathos,” “Animals and Humour,” “Animals and Soul.” For any reader who revels in the marvel of animals, many poems will fascinate and enthrall. One such poem is “The Thoughts of a Dog.” “What really does go on inside the mind of a domestic dog?” the poet asks. He goes on to tell us that “it isn’t merely cupboard love” in words that soar with the very essence of what it means to know the true spirit of a loyal pet.
I defy any dog lover to suppress a smile when reading “Verses Addressed to Sundry Labrador Retrievers.” Here is one of the verses:
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There was a fine canine called Ellie
Whose ears were as big as your telly
Those trips to the deli
For marrowbone jelly
Gave Ellie a very large belly.
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Hartley turns his attention to all creatures great and small. These include a mule, a mistle-thrush, the dodo, a bandy black-backed bustard, cats, a toad, piglets, geese, skylarks and more. The animal kingdom is a subject dear to the poet’s heart, so dear there is a captivating poem titled The Plight of Animals. Its engaging lines lead up to the fascinating question, “… But why are helpless beasts outcast, /And who will give the sinless peace at last?” This poem is a delightful must read for all who adore and ponder the predicament of God’s furred and feathered creations.
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The poet’s life as a well-travelled painting conservator who has flirted with and defied death on breathtaking mountaineering expeditions, has been pivotal in producing a plethora of poems of visits to beautiful and perilous places. Some of these locations adorn the cover of Songs of My Life and Death. Hartley paints words with a fine eye for attention to details that elevate a poem to magnificence. This is evident in the outstanding An Incident on the Cornish Cliffs. This is not just a poem. It’s a cinematic experience with a poignant pinch of philosophy. I have chosen the stanza below, from this twenty-five-stanza poem comprising meticulously composed quatrains, to highlight the depth of this poem:
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And surely better had he not been born,
The bliss of twenty years unmissed? Had he
Foreknowledge of that brutal end forlorn
Would he have begged to be or not to be?
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The subject is death, and this Hamlet-inspired question lifts the ‘incident’ to dimensions beyond mere words. An Incident on the Cornish Cliffs soars above  aesthetic appeal to seek the meaning of life and death. Hartley’s ability to convey stark, innermost feelings through poetry with a graceful yet fierce passion is a gift that brings with it a quiet and heartfelt understanding in words that will linger long after the book is closed.
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Songs of My Life and Death has the balance right. It is a book of landscapes, mountains, animals, music, art, horror, joy, love, and grief. There’s even a ripple of laughter in limerick and clerihew form. There is something for everyone in this 520-page book – a book that will enrich the lives of all who read it!
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Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.

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The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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8 Responses

  1. James A. Tweedie

    Ditto to everything Susan says in her review. I own the book myself and have read the poems and reread them (and some of them read yet again), and never without something new, perhaps beautiful, perhaps insightful, perhaps vividly descriptive but always offering some exquisite twist of mind that reveals things I had never noticed or considered before.

    Peter’s poetry is entertaining in the deepest sense of the word. Each poem is an invitation for us to “enter” and “entertain” the gist and grist of what lies within–a journey of the discovery and exploration of a world I thought I knew well until, through Peter Hartley’s eyes, I saw it again as if for the first time.

    As Susan put it, “. . . a book that will enrich the lives of all who read it!”

    And, for once, a commendation worthy of the exclamation mark that brings it full stop!

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    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Jim,

      Heartfelt thanks indeed from me for your very kind and thoughtful comments on Susan’s excellent and detailed review. I am as gratified to hear that you have read this so thoroughly as I am grateful for the care and attention you have so evidently paid in reading the book itself. As you iterate, in response to a comment in her review, I do hope the book can, in its turn, and in some small way, enrich the lives of its readers. Thank you once again for your kind words.

      Reply
  2. Jeff Eardley

    Susan, top marks for your review of Peter’s astonishing collection, all written in just three years. This book has been my constant companion since Peter so graciously sent me a free copy. I love the humour, the sadness, the travelogues, the pets and most of all, “The Butcher of Barcelona.”

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Jeff,

      I am so glad to hear that you too have awarded top marks to Susan’s comprehensive review of those little verses. Within our humble poetic circle, as you will be well aware, they could not have received a greater honour than this. I am chuffed to hear that the book goes everywhere with you: I could not have wished for a more resounding accolade and I do hope it will last you a good few years yet. It is specially designed to fit in a glove-box and you will be able to treble its lifetime with twelve yards of parcel tape and a bulldog clip on the spine.

      Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    This is a wonderfully inspiring review, Susan! Your enthusiasm is so infectious I believe I will have to order a copy of Mr. Hartley’s book posthaste to start enjoying his work at the start of the new year. Ever since my introduction to Peter Hartley’s poetry on this site, I have found his writing to be noteworthy for its generosity of spirit, profundity of thought and elegance of expression. Publication of his many fine pieces in book form is fitting as his poetry deserves a wide audience.

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Brian,

      Yes, Susan’s review of “Songs” is quite an achievement in itself, being a very comprehensive and almost stand-alone synopsis of the whole thing by a mistress of her craft. I really do hope that you will have been able to get hold of a copy of “Songs” before the New Year, and, if you have already suffered from a surfeit of utter misery over the festive period (the parsnips never are cooked just right) DON’T start by trying to read “Clare” or “Animals and Pathos”first!

      Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Peter, what a delightful Christmas gift to see you commenting here. Susan’s prose-poetry review is the very thing to evoke it. I’ll try for a continuation by saying that I appreciate your book better for the re-reading I might not have done otherwise. Like the preceding American volume, it is organized to allow readers easy location of the kinds of poem they like–or of their subjects of interest at the moment. Looking over my favorites in the book (and finding new ones), I’ll say you’ve been an important voice here. When I think of your comments as well as your poems, I very much miss your contribution, and hope your health (and your technology) will allow you to return. Christmas blessings on this Second Day of the season!

    Reply
    • Peter Hartley

      Margaret, Many thanks for your comments on Susan’s review of the book, and thank you for the encouragement you give me to continue from where I left off so many months ago. My health is in a slightly parlous state at the moment but it is probably not half as dire as the state of my I T. All my best to you for this festive season.

      Reply

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