My favourite poetry book. Patten evokes the uncertainty of the human condition with humour and compassion. I read this book for comfort, inspiration and courage.

Brian Patten's works are notable for their Romanticism with subtle touches on the deception and frustration caused by estranged love. His "Vanishing Trick" and "Love Poems" celebrate the trials and tribulations of love, its dizzy raptures and aesthetic love bordering on spirituality.

Patten's poems are as varied in their thematic content as the vicissitudes to which love is subjected to, showing that the path of love is never smooth. The poet in "One Another's Light" ruminates over the influence that we have on one another and the power of love, a great force in our private life that binds one person with another. Thus lit briefly by one another's light, the light of love, of life, we at the same time go in a path of our own making and "think that way we go is right". In "A Love Poem" the poet says that to the ecstatic lover, even "all that's common place" seems to be "unique". The lover discovers that it is his love for the woman that acts as an "alchemy" and makes her "flesh different from the rest". In "You Go into Town", the poet admits that no one can satiate his physical and emotional needs as well as his beloved does and that the other women fail to satisfy him as he finds "in other bodies only an echo of her". The poem "On Time for Once" celebrates true love that has withstood the test of time. The lovers have cruised along safely and have withstood "so many nights bloated with pain". Though the lovers do not know what the future holds for them, they are certain of the fact that they would be together till the end.

The poet compares the innocence of the lovers in their youth with their cynicism in the later years in "A Blade of Grass". The poem "A Blade of Grass" expresses the idea that when one is young, he or she tends to believe in the concept of love, truth and beauty. Even a blade of grass will be accepted in lieu of a poem when a lover offers it to his young beloved. But as one grows older, a person becomes cynical and even "a blade of grass/becomes more difficult to accept", for her calculative mind will only dismiss a grass as merely grass , nothing more and nothing less.

The poem "vanishing Trick" describes the pain and sufferings of a lover caused by estrangement in love. In this poem , the poet gives a sensitive portrayal of a lover who is hurt by the cold and indifferent attitude of his beloved who talks about separation "as if going were the smallest matter". The lover wants to be resilient and to salvage his injured pride wants to try his beloved's "vanishing trick and manage ...to feel nothing". That is the only way to forget the woman who has deserted him.

The poet views that the unpredictability seen in the matters of love is so pervasive as to include in its ken even ordinary human relationships and friendships. The poet suggests that even friendships and human relationships are unpredictable in the poem "Sometimes it Happens". Nothing happens as we want it to happen . Even human relationships have an air of unpredictability about them, as they come to their natural death. One time you are friends, but in the next moment you separate. In this manner whole days are lost and you find yourself that the fountain of energy in you is completely exhausted in this futile exercise. Sometimes we are loved and then love comes to nothing and thus "love is past". Thus things which we thought to matter the most at one point of time cease to matter at another point of time and as a result they lose their significance as we do not care for or to think about them any longer and thus "caring is past" and in this cyclic process of caring and not caring for a thing or for a pursuit, we find our energies completely drained and exhausted.

The poet's optimism is evident in "You Missed the Sunflowers at their Height". In this poem, patten expresses the view that it is not too late to find whatever one is looking for, be it love or lost opportunities, for whatever one considers to be lost is "simply for a time mislaid". The protagonist seems to have missed his chances in life. He seems to have missed the beauty of "the sunflower at their height"-when the flowers stood tall and blooming. Now that he has come back, it is too late , for the flowers are worn and bent and even the flies are dying as they fall half frozen into the last of the sprawling marigold. Though the beauty is lost, there is still hope, for the cycle repeats itself. Thus the poet suggests that if the protagonist is looking for love or lost opportunities, he need not feel dejected, as he is bound to attain fulfilment in his quest for love or success in life.

The poet's uniqueness of imagination conceives a comparison of his beloved with Mother Earth through the dexterous use of a simile. The poet compares his beloved to Mother Earth in "Sleepy". Just as the silent and sleepy Earth exercises its fascination , so does his beloved. His beloved's neck arrests his attention like a silent forest, just as her kisses happen to be the caresses of rain. His beloved could exercise sensuous influence over him even in her sleep and the very silence of her sleep was more intense than her sound or laughter. Similarly Earth exercises its fascination whether it be day or night, whether it be the silence or the voice of nature.

Thus Patten has carved a niche for himself in the field of poetry through his unique handling of the subject and the versatality of his style to suit the variety of his themes.

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A beautifully illustrated children's picture book. The pastels used by the illustrator set the scene for this enchanting mystical search for someone to help mend Emma's doll. Spookily Emma's doll looks exactly like Emma herself. Her expressions are the same, as Emma becomes frightened so does her doll, as she is running the doll runs too. They are dressed in the same clothes - a long white night-gown. Perhaps this could lead the reader to believe they are in fact the same person and the doll is just a figure of Emma's imagination? Emma encounters various people on her adventure. It is interesting to make the comparison to other well known childrens stories here as all the characters she meets are characters that children would have met before. Evil characters such as a witch, wolves, dwarves whom she daren't entrust her precious doll to. The character that end up helping mend Emma's doll are also reconisable lion (Wizard of Oz) dove - normally associated with love. Great discussions can go on here with children as to how they know whether someone is evil or safe. The last page show Emma back in her bedroom asleep with her doll. Around her bedroom are toy versions of all the helpful animals she met along her journey - another point for discussion with children. Altogether a very well thought out beautifully illustrated large book superb for shared reading in the classroom or at home.

Writer of some wonderful poetry, including two beautiful pieces entitled "And Sometimes It Happens" and "A Blade of Grass". Although I personally feel that there are some poems in this collection that fall short of the romantic expectations given by the title, this is a great book to curl up in bed with your lover and woo her with precious words. If that does not impress her, I have no idea what will!

Shame it is out of print. But try and get it.