Please join me in congratulating poet, Paul Brookes, on the launch of his latest poetry collection, Otherness. Without further ado it’s over to Paul to tell you all about it.
Otherness
Paul Brookes
Otherness is dedicated to David Morley and the late Les Murray. It all sprang from a comment David Morley made when I interviewed him for my blog Wombwell Rainbow Book Interviews HERE
For me, the poet Les Murray is a talismanic figure, and his Translations from the Natural World is my Wonderbook. Les Murray ingeniously imitates and translates the perceptions and voices of molluscs, sunflowers, spermaceti, cuttlefish, cell DNA, elephants, cats, cows on a killing day, ravens, echidnas, lyrebirds and – most memorably – a poem written in the syntax of bat’s ultrasound using ancient Welsh metre. The rich, inventive language of this slim volume still knocks me out. The voicing is precise, instinctive, and never anthropocentric: it is a total inhabiting of creaturely worlds. For my part, given by background in zoology and poetry, negative capability melds with its apparent opposite, precision. (David Morley, 2021)
Morley’s comments inspired me to look at animals through Les Murray’s eyes, his zoopoetics. I was already into writing from the first person, but to look through animals’ eyes, feel through their surfaces would need an extra leap of imagination. I enjoy challenges of new ways of looking. Les Murray showed me myriad ways of doing this. It is up to the reader to say whether I have arrived close to what Murray achieves.
Unlike Murray I chose to use the Shakespearean sonnet as a form to view these worlds. A familiar through which to see the unfamiliar.
Jane Cornwell’s stunning artwork accompanies these sonnets and are another door into these worlds. For me she brings the words into another life.
About Paul Brookes
Paul Brookes is a poet and lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. He has had several chapbooks published and his first play was performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre in Hull. Paul is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews and challenges. His work has been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3 and featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley.
Patricia M Osborne 
How wonderful! Congratulations to Paul on his new publication!
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Thank you for reading and commenting, Merril.
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You’re welcome!
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Reblogged this on The Wombwell Rainbow and commented:
Thankyou, Tricia for this opportunity to talk about where the idea came from.
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You’re very welcome, Paul. There’s always a space on Patricia’s Pen for you to talk about your poetry. Best of luck with the new book.
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You’re very welcome, Paul. x
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