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The joy of editing Laurence McPartlin's poems is to become a companion, a fellow traveller on that wayward pathway from youth to maturity and beyond. It is not a solemn walk, but one of curiosity, deriving joy and understanding from every blade of grass, from the mountainous Kirkstone Pass in Cumbria, the tumbling streams of Dalton Beck to the spaces and majesty of Spain and its never-ending skies.
Mac's work, imbued by the rhythms of folk and dance, have a music that evokes the Chartist movement of the 1830s to the 1850s, spanning the ages of Romanticism and Pre-Raphaelite art and poetry. The work of Southey, Hogg and Bloomfield sits well with Mac's talent for vivid vignettes and vibrant detail. Throughout these poems there is light, a youthful mind never resting but - as in Steelworks - plotting its escape from darkness; and doing it with a zeal and wicked ebullience that charms the reader.
In 'Catch Me If You Can', the wilful child has become a man for whom 'pearl shell comets are the only wings I need'. Figures dance and play throughout the poems, the worker, the jester, the minstrel, and images of children that recall the Echoing Green and the Songs of Innocence by William Blake.
So, join us on this walk through McPartlin's life. Bring your sketchbook and pencils, and that guitar and, yes, those eyes. But do as he does. Take your time, spend aeons of it, watch and learn, be patient as a clock and look deeply into the heart of things.
John Simes
February 23, Challaborough, Devon, UK.
