British poet Anne Berkeley, whom I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago in London, has published a terrific collection of poems, "The Men from Praga.” The publisher of her collection, Salt Publishing, like all independent publishers these days, is struggling to keep going. They put to the word out, asking for anyone to buy “just one book,” whether from them or “from Amazon, your local shop or megastore, online or offline” they don’t care -- as long as you buy just one book.
You might as well start with Anne Berkeley’s book, but don’t stop there…. The list of books is long, with plenty of drama and fiction, and even criticism and essays to please the omni-genrist.
For a taste of Anne Berkeley's work, here is one of my favorite poems from her book:
Nav Rad*
The Vulcan beat out such a din
there's heavy irony
in the imagery
of anvil and sickle.
Heaven 'd
weep at what my father knew:
co-ordinates
of targets,
the precise skill
of Blue Steel
to raze so many by so few--
returning with his burden
red-eyed, limping, deafened
by a damaged ossicle.
* After an email exchange with Anne Berkeley it became clear to me that perhaps an American reader, especially one far removed from the days of the Cold War, might not have a frame of reference for some of the terms that give this poem its twists and turns and music, so here is a brief glossary:
- Nav Rad is a Navigator Radar (who plots bombs)
- Vulcan was a British nuclear bomber
- Blue Steel was a British H-bomb
- The eleventh line references a speech by Churchill praising the RAF.V-bomber aircrew frequently suffered hearing damage on account of prolonged exposure to extreme noise
