Reviews

Two Left Boots Fisherrow Press. 40pp, 
£5 plus £1.50 p&p contact here to buy a copy

Reviews from the poetry world so far:

Carole Bromley:

Lively, varied, tender, humorous, full of affection yet never sentimental, these are poems to read over and over. I loved the nature poems, those dealing with friendship, illness and love. My favourite was the wonderfully wry 'Ladies of the Committee' which made me laugh out loud.

 Ann Pilling

The poems vary in subject from home and family, to landscape, to birds and sea, to the shock of a cancer diagnosis. But whichever subject she chooses, Veronica brings to it the same warmth and directness. There is much vivid and precise observation about the natural world, there is humour and there is quiet. Outstanding among the poems is ‘Tenth Birthday’ a poem about the Aberfan disaster of 1966; moving also are the poems about her mother, as she fails. ’Racing Raindrops’ is a beautifully turned poem with its poignant ending ‘It rained hard again today,/I tried to remember the rules/and that elusive part of you’. She can be nasty too. ’Charm’ is about someone who collects ‘friends like charms on a bracelet’ . /Try not to lose it / Where would you be without it?’. ‘Ladies of the Committee’ is equally barbed and brilliantly executed . It really made me laugh. There are several love poems, to a new born child with its ‘raindrop nails / the whipped folds of skin’, a first love with ‘big lapels, flares..and I noticed you..then time began’.’Two Left Boots’ ‘tramp along / in their parallel universe / as we celebrate, feet up..’

There is much to enjoy and to ponder, in these carefully wrought, yet always accessible poems - love, loss, landscape, laughter – what more can we ask?

Jean Stevens:

As indicated by the headings of the five sections of this pamphlet, these poems cover a wide range from the Personal to the Satirical. In the latter section Veronica shows how well she can handle the humorous, as in Past the Angelus Snack Bar which begins ‘They flock to the Disneyland of God/On the wings of Vatican Airways.” I particularly enjoyed “Immaculate Conception ice cream” and “Glow-in-the-dark Virgin Marys”.

In the more serious poems the poet uses a variety of forms from the rhyme and strong rhythm of the war poem Provençal Spring to the shape poem At Home on World AIDS Day, and Tenth Birthday is an elegy to the lost children of Aberfan in which Veronica takes an unusual approach to her subject matter, drawing on both imagination and experience.

Music Box and Racing Raindrops are poems to which everyone will relate as they encapsulate the strong memories we all have of people past and present who have influenced our lives.

This writer has the ability to use down-to-earth language when writing about painful experiences such as visiting a loved one languishing in a home, and it is the very simplicity of the final lines of The Birthday Wish that impress:

“I reverse away

to drive home,

and wish for you

no more birthdays,

no more candles.”

Similarly, In The Chemo Lounge is notable for its understated control of a difficult subject and moves with assurance to its final moving lines:

“.… we talk of holidays, home

- Wales, Romania -

and maintain the calm

amidst the unbelievable.”

This pamphlet packs a great deal into a small space

Jean Harrison

‘Two Left Boots’ is Veronica Caperon’s first collection. The poems focus largely on relationships, with friends, family, people met on holiday, the landscape round her home and that encountered on holiday. They are warm and, full of verve and humour, fly along even though they are packed with a load of detail. This could weigh them down and cause confusion but it is vivid, well-observed and relevant. The simple language is a great asset, but she can vary it with technical terms drawn from computing and photography which she does effectively and with wit.

Her best poems are those when she dares to end on an image, such as the stars above Lawkland. These open the words into a different dimension. The collection would benefit from more of this kind of poem. If she could trust her readers to enjoy working a little harder, she could make her work more concise and perhaps take it over an edge of feeling she approaches in the most personal poems but tends to draw back from.

Overall, there is much here to enjoy.

 And 'ordinary readers' 
I took your book with me to bed and read from cover to cover! It's brought tears to my eyes, made me laugh in parts, lifted my heart in others. It's a book to treasure.    BH


Review of Settle Sessions April 2017 can be seen here

 Review of Eldroth poetry and music afternoon February 2017 can be seen here