NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Brian Merrikin Hill (1917-1997) was a tall giant of a man. This book is a very fitting tribute. Pauline Kirk tells us not only of the poet's background, and of how the events of his life shaped his work. She introduces us to the poetry and some of the deep beliefs that lie behind and within it. Not only that but she tells her own story of how through Hill's concern with teaching others, he taught her how to shape her own poetry. He influenced her to read widely outside the mainstream and encouraged her to take an interest in local history.

An appendix reprints seven of his poems. The poems are contrasting in style but all have the mark of a genius. Included is one of my favourite Hill poems THIXENDALE which begins

	I went alone there once and in rare moments recalled 
	how five lanes, some single-tracked with passing-places 
	(like scottish roads), reached it by creating calm 
	between chalk screes grass speckled green on white. 
	Empty fields edged quarries where nothing needed to happen.

Pauline Kirk's volume, OWLSTONE, is full of good poems. Her style varies, and there is much experimentation going on within the diverse poems on offer here. As far as the appearance of the volume goes, however, I felt that although I liked the cover drawing by Wendy Cantell, I did consider that the illustrations throughout the text were unnecessary and rather detracted from the poems themselves. As with many volumes of poetry, I felt that the poems stood well enough alone, and did not need sketches to illuminate them. Having said this, Kirk's is a good volume with much to recommend it to readers.

Poems such as NEGLECTED GARDEN with lines like:

	Crusted, the colour of treacle,
	mud suffocates a withering lake —
	once a mill owner's pride

	crusted, the colour of treacle

	soft and furry as a hamster’s back.

However, one poem that you don't get on with in a whole volume is to be expected, and the volume is a good one. I liked BRANCH LINE about how Kirk considers the landscape of her childhood to have been altered, and I also enjoyed FLOTSAM, again about the processes of memory. Colour and light play precisely through Kirk's work, as here in BEYOND LEATHLEY:

	Now lintels hewn by giants frame a broken sky;
	balance door shafts in Georgian symmetry.
	A courtyard shines through grass

An A5 book of poems which includes work from SCORPION DAYS, RED MARL, BRICK, RIGHTS OF WAY, TRAVELLING SOLO, NO CURE IN TEARS, and OWLSTONE. The selection also contains new poems. Pauline Kirk received a New Beginnings Award in 1996 from Yorkshire Arts. She is a talented novelist who was born in Birmingham and travelled to Australia. She lives in Yorkshire. This selection is generously sprinkled with her travel experiences. For instance, there is RED CENTRE, which begins:

	Below us, the Outback unfolds:
	parched river beds meander,
	grey-green through yellowing ills.
	Then the real desert begins.
	Warm and red and deadly, it waits,
	beneath derisory clouds.

	Work must be done, whatever the news.
	The labourer tilled his field
	while Napoleon camped beyond his hedge.
	As Anthony and Cleopatra fought,
	their slaves went on chiselling.

	No doubt they thanked him,
	apologised for being a nuisance.
	How do those of us who remain cope,
	explain the inexplicable?

	Was this how it felt, Milton?
	The surprise, not quite believing,
	Seeing everything with new eyes,
	Knowing you might be losing the old?

This 36-page collection of poems by Kirk is self-typeset and well illustrated by tasteful black and white half-tones. She has published seven previous collections, is author of three novels, has broadcast, and is Senior Partner in the Fighting Cock Press, with Mabel Ferrett, who hosts the Pennine Poets.

The volume is a pleasure to handle — an under-realised subjective factor for first touch by any budding critic, contributed to by the general aesthetics of cover, illustrations and type balance. The poetry is traditionally descriptive without straining for effect. Some of the work is somewhat of an antidote, although not evangelistic, to declining attendances in the Christian Church — a poetry closer to church roots which seems more effective than any need to substitute modernistic poetic approaches to the problem. The Vicar of St.Edward's, also Rural Dean of York, says

Pauline's gifts have been offered to St. Edwards in many guises... She reads from the Bible, takes part in dramatic readings and sings in the choir.

	If I were a Wise Man,
	I would do my part;
	Yet what I can I give
	Him: give my heart.

	As I walk into a London Winter, my mind
	Sings your rhythms, your carols lift my soul. 
 
	Watching Christmas lights plait along the river,
	I thank you, Christina, woman to woman. 
	Your bleak Midwinter has thawed my own.

	But what of those men of God, William and Thomas? How did they 
	Persuade to a heroic death folk more used to cheating at cards
	Or drinking porter? The waiting must have been the worst . . .

	Suddenly 
	I am crying, standing in a busy street.

In CHRISTMAS IRREVERENTS she considers the other side of the coin, which becomes shinier as the real face of Christmas is dulled to extinction:

	Christmas is acoming
	The streets are being lit.
	Please put a twenty
	In the Ad man's hat.