Lifesaving Poems - A Review

Lifesaving Poems (edited by Antony Wilson, 2015, Bloodaxe Books)

This collection, edited by Anthony Wilson and containing his choice of favourites with a short essay after each one, has an unfortunate title.  It inevitably reminds one of those books that promote poetry as a form of self-help or therapy: poems to relax you, poems to inspire, poems that make men cry... Yes, poetry has been co-opted by the life coaching brigade, but I suppose anything that gets more people reading it can only be a good thing. And a good poem can stand up to any sort of treatment. 

                But following my recent experience of bereavement, I can see why people turn to poetry for help and consolation. When the odd bout of grief hits me, it’s a queasy, destabilising sensation that feels like someone has given a jar of water a shake and a layer of sediment has risen from the bottom and turned the water cloudy. Poetry, which often reminds me of what’s there in front of me, such as permanent features in nature and in our lives, has served to help me maintain some sense of equilibrium at a disturbing time.  

                In Lifesaving Poems, Wilson, a poet and a teacher, selects and comments on, poems that helped him become a poet, poems that stunned him and on poems that helped him through cancer. As he writes in the introduction, the book ‘is a thank you to the people who have shared a love of poetry with me.’ Despite the title and occasionally grim subject-matter, his choices are devoid of drama and sentimentality. Like all the best poems, they look at life in an unflinching manner, and they aren’t afraid to pick up the stone and observe what’s going on underneath. And that’s what the best poets do, I suppose: look hard at the things most of us turn away from or want to avoid thinking about.

                Wilson includes fantastic poems by the likes of Jo Shapcott, Raymond Carver and Sharon Olds and his short essays neatly balance analysis with personal reflection; his observations are always illuminating but they never steal the spotlight from the poems themselves.

                What’s most endearing about this book is the editor’s giddy enthusiasm for the poems and his championing of unknown or forgotten poets such as Stephen Berg, whose New and Selected Poems, Wilson writes, is available on Amazon for 13p.  Of Martin Stannard, he claims ‘had he come from New York or Zagreb, we would all be called him a genius by now.’  Poets need proselytisers and the ones included in this collection are lucky to have one like Wilson.