John Freeman is a master of the ‘plain style’, working in a poetic line that takes in Wordsworth and William Carlos Williams. In this fine new collection many discrete lyrics, sequences, prose poems and longer pieces such as “Archer and Acorn”, debate ‘ways of saying’, as in the opening sequence “Tabula Rasa” where simple diction and the working of speech rhythms over line units create for the reader ‘a spaciousness/ for us to stand up in and/ a resolved immediacy for us/ to enter into through calm contemplation, like a door/ into an inheritance we lost.’
“There is life in these poems and a life. John Freeman knows how to make the ordinary and everyday meaningful without resorting to fashionable tricks and clever turns of phrase. What happens is there to be thought about and turned into poems which, with their unobtrusive technique, draw the reader into them and into their life. It’s a rewarding experience.”
Jim Burns
“His poetry re-awakens a sense of wonder in us… His way is to look very closely at nature and at human relationships. It’s the kind of attention Rilke recommended…”
Kim Taplin