NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Bob Cooper writes earthy poetry with a lyricist's touch. This combination of toughness and sensitivity is a winning team. Geordie characters, one after another, rise up from these pages fully formed — not just in the physical sense — but with an added dimension; giving them a dignity and mystery whether they're repairing a car or having a piddle: JOHN AT THE SHIELDFIELD GARAGE

	A glance seems enough as he bends, unscrews the airfilter, 
	prods with a finger — fetch a half cup of petrol — pours. 
	start it again — a spurt — then he spits, wipes his eyes, swears. 
	Cleaning his hands he explains a lazy fuel pump — and 
	your carburettor, the jets the width of a darning needle, 
	doesn't block, just needs time. Or prime it see? 
	He accepts we sometimes keep running on empty, tikes his trannie 
	loud as he works — ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE — he sings 
	as the bonnet's pressed shut, and the body rocks slightly, 
	and all that he's touched still trembles, hums.

	And there with the overcoats, 
	smooth hair, gloves, 
	where people crowd in, crowd out, 
	like pollen an unconsidered touch 
	of perfume, cashmere, 
	stays with me on the escalator, 
	sunlit.

	Life is either your hat, coat and umbrella laid on the settee 
	or the simplicity of fingers that pick up and unwrap 
	as everything packed in the chest is unpacked; ...

	Life is either looking down on a curve of trees, 
	a bread van, wet streets, people hurrying, 
	or across the midsummer horizon and sky 
	where a black-headed gull, 
	solidly large at this level, 
	is excreting its blessing while turning.

Twenty one poems with geographical clues that clearly point to a writer who knows Newcastle well. The poems are deceptively open but each brings to the light the hidden secrets of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people. It is this revealing of the hidden, the stripping of layers of deception that make the title apt. The title poem ALL WE KNOW IS WHAT WE SEE sets the tone for the whole book. Particularly poignant is THE TROUBLE WITH CAROL who carries the sense of absurdity and falsity of life around through a hard life until

	...she knows if she doesn't walk away quickly it will come out,
	unrestrained, unbelievably loud.

Bob Cooper's new collection, ALL WE KNOW IS ALL WE SEE, is a treat for devotees of his work, and a revelation for those who, like myself, have not come across his poems before. As a first time reader, what I really relished here was the economy of words, and the power of the poet's imagery. The poems that struck me as being the most memorable were contained in the sonnet sequence THE WET CHILD, which is subtitled Following Wordsworth with a series of 34 poems along the River Duddon. Following Wordsworth anywhere is, in my book, always a poetic risk, as is calling him by the familiar name Willie. Yet it is a risk that, in this instance, Cooper pulls off with aplomb. In his journey along the River Duddon, Cooper encounters backpackers, arguing couples, climbers, publicans, families, the ghost of Wordsworth himself, and Wordsworth's child of the clouds, the Wet Child of the sequence's title. Lines such as:

	the Duddon makes its river sounds once more
	and leaves applaud his performance, loudly

	crowd out,
	like pollen

In poems such as YES, Cooper's detailed descriptions of natural phenomena are reminiscent of Ted Hughes, but also of the American poet, Galway Kinnell. Indeed, the opening lines of the poem put me in mind of the opening of Galway Kinnell's THE BEAR. In YES, Cooper transforms the landscape by making the sun reminiscent of a dying animal:

	So quietly, like an old mammal dying in winter,
	the blood orange sun bled for us again last night.

In short, this is a well written, and nicely structured volume, that re-pays reading. Finally, it is interesting to note that the experience of rock climbing seems to be proving a fertile ground for poets, from Mark Goodwin in Leicestershire, to Cooper in many landscapes, including the Highlands and the Lake District. This volume in particular benefits from a sense of the real outdoors, and the exact textures of place.