Owl Unbound

Owl Unbound is written with an incredible eye for the tiniest detail. I loved how vividly Zoe Brooks can bring scenes to life, capturing not only their physical aspects - sights, sounds and scents - within her poetry, but the resulting emotions too. Through poems such as My Grandfather And Uncle and The Seedsavers I could clearly understand those moments in the lives of these people. I'm envious of Brooks' ability to put ideas across with such clarity through what are mostly quite short poems. Charlie Watching is another fine example of this. I also appreciated the use of dialect words to illustrate scenes. Even when I didn't know their exact meaning - a brining stream that 'slummocked' in Severn Train, for example - their sound and context still conjured up great images in my mind. My lack of religious knowledge did unfortunately mean that some of those connections were lost on me, but otherwise I felt many of the works really captured my imagination.

Most times I picked up Owl Unbound to immerse myself in a few more poems I found myself encouraged to get out into the natural world, urban or rural, and experience Brooks' insights for myself. There's a lovely sense of timelessness throughout this collection. Poems including The Apples brought to mind how we have lost old-fashioned ways of living and looking after ourselves that would stand us in good stead in these days of involuntary isolation and food shortages. Owl Unbound is a thought-provoking read which opened up new insights to me on repeated readings. I feel it is a good collection to be enjoyed alone, but also shared by reading aloud with like-minded souls.