Wardini Book Review: Slow Fires — Leonard Lambert (Cold Hub Press, $19.50)

Poetry collection Slow Fires by Leonard Lambert

REVIEW

This is a poetry collection from a dab hand, a writer who knows his way around a word. The 36 poems deal with nothing short of life itself, seen from the perspective of a man who has lived it for a while now.

To read this book on a sunny autumn afternoon has been to accompany Leonard, to slow my breathing and my heart rate, to take stock and consider things through an older person’s gaze.

Ageing can bring quiet joy, the calm everyone craves, the slow fires of contentment and memory rather than lust for life.

There are no rose-tinted spectacles here, though — there is also panic at time ticking away, a realisation that sometimes people just get over it.

Many of us, as we age, dream of times past. There’s a yearning for people, experiences, and things we have lost.

The opening poem, Remembered Land, recalls the landscape of home in almost painfully evocative verse as the poet’s mind wanders, rolling home in the afternoon light.

It recalls a stage of life before the loss of loved ones, before the children flew the nest, but it’s with love and thankfulness rather than maudlinism.

There is such fun here, too, real laugh-out-loud humour when confronting the absurdities of life.

Old age as a closing-down sale, as parole from a life of ganged-up moments of Overwhelming Importance:

“It’s VITAL that we meet the standards/expectations/deadlines our Client demands.” (How vital? Did you die?)

Slow Fires is a nap in front of the hearth, stirring occasionally to wonder, remember, rail, hope and savour.

Leonard Lambert will read from his collection at Wardini Books Napier on Tuesday, June 6th, at 6pm. This is a free event and all are welcome.