Customer Reviews

Longitudes: Selected poems

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I relive shivering sleepless nights on the frosty steppes of Central Asia, longing for the warmth and fellowship of a better place and time. Reading Birkbeck's poems almost takes me there! His poem, "Nazi Princess", makes me laugh and cry at the same time.

You're walking down the richly-appointed hallway of a luxurious Florntine palace, basking in stupefied wonder and awe of your surroundings. Suddenly, one if the lavish tapestries is yanked away and you're left looking at what's really there-- curious water marks on the wallpaper. That's what reading Birkbeck's poems is like; the yanking away of apparent reality, and the glimpse underneath of the virtual reality. This poet is a magician!

I use the word "Lunatic" in a flattering way, of course, when I deal with John Birkbeck's poems. His references to the moon are quite cryptic and laden with spooky mystery. Just as in the body of his work, one dangles between humour and horror. Many of his poems are a sort of wake-up call for those of us who walk on the thin ice of the reality of the inner life.

Although John Birkbeck is sparing in his words and in the use of punctution, this, oddly, makes the sound and sense of the poems more cogeant and ingestible. He is a master at complex bathos and yet manages to be quite funny, too. One does not "review" a book like this, one wallows in it!

This book is like a tray full of interestingly shaped and tasty poetic hors d'oeuvres. The sense I get from these damn fine and fun poems, is that of the eternal college student, someone never quite finished with his master's thesis and quite comfortable, nay, ecstatic, with the fact. These are poems full of history, philosophy, art and gritty street hunger, lust and thirst.

This book of poetry leads one through an arachnids ball of ordered chaos. The twists and turns of seemingly misdirection arrive at horizons of a total clear and crystalline vision.

While the brevity allowed for breathing I nearly choked on the form. That which for awhile raised my vision suddenly plunged me into the trenches of Marianas, and left me dry and dessicated on the deserts of some expanse, only to freeze my soul at the poles.....

John's work reminds me of a Zen saying-- that you can never step into the same river twice. (Because, as with everything, the river is constantly changing and becoming new all the time). So it is with John's poetry-- it will present new and differing meanings, patterns and images with each reading.

He writes as he feels-- not to some prescribed form or method but simply as he is. Longitudes is a delightful read that you'll wish to share over and over again. My favorite line is from the poem, "The One-Legged Hopping Man-- "In a world of the misbegotten, perfection is seen as error ..."

Do yourself a favor and read this collection.