Nature, in all its faces, is the primary concern of Waypoints. We read about Nature’s
operations, in the elegiac `Suddenly at Burneside’ in the `Dew-laden grass |
Laced with sparkling webs of spiders’ necklaces’ in `Lambrigg Spring’ and about
her people, from `The reclusive guardian of the warehouse | On Brunswick Dock
North’ to the soldier `Travelling untrammelled | By wealth or obligations` in `Travelling
Light’.
Forsyth’s eye is panoramic, spreading wide, from across the
world he sees and to the inside of the mind. His work brings to mind the Larkin
quote `the impulse to preserve lies at the bottom of all art’ with the world in
the poems preserved in detail that is intricate, physical and photographic.
Indeed the reader sees and smells the `Coal gas and over-heated bodies |
encased in oil-soaked overalls’ in `The Black Years: undoubtedly some of
the conjurations in these poems would make for an interesting collection of
photographs.
Often, there is high commitment to music, which we see in
`Brown Gold’; `A luckless un-spent penny, offered boldly by a careless boy';
and `Hunted’:
For something or someone is creeping
there,
Too close for ease, in tom-tiddler’s
ground
In that zone of unreality
Between light and shade, silence and
sound.
With the last
example showcasing the poet’s awareness of breath and subtlety, with close
reading revealing intricacy in the way the para-rhyme of `ease’ and `unreality’
falls in the lines.
More often
than not, the poems maintain their tone, consistent within themselves; an
impressive example of this is in the ode to lost love `Ghost Hunting' which
deals perfectly with the subject without straying into cliché:
What sort of future can survive.
Other than the ritual dance of love
Performed by proxy lovers
To the half remembered sounds
Of our old music?
Converse to
this, I feel that similar treatment could have been employed in `Lullaby’ which
deals with parenthood. I felt it used tired rhymes `Oh little love | My gentle
dove’ and second-hand sentiment `My hand and | Command | A lifetime Of
devotion’. There are also other instances where I feel that sometimes certain
lines weaken the impact of their precedents such as in `Suddenly at Burneside'
where the speech `They always look like that, | The blood sinks to the lower
side | When ever they die facing down.' feels unnatural, as if it slips out of
tone.
With
consideration of all its poems, Waypoints is an intricate and sensitive
collection. There is mostly a sense of control within the lines and a
personalised dealing with the subjects. It is a collection for human beings and
deals with our confusing relationship with Nature and the finality of its
control over us. In this instance, how fitting it is that the collection is
bookended by the natural polars of life and death, with `Lambrigg Spring’
detailing `The power of the growing Birch tree’ and `When I Have Gone’
addressing a presumed loved to `Have no concern’ after the narrators death.
