Communing

by Ben Banyard

Communing is Ben's debut pamphlet from Indigo Dreams Publishing. It was published in March 2016. It consists of 20 poems about life, love, birth, death, memory and place. Some were written as part of 52 (prompts by Jo Bell), and its successor, 52+ (prompts by Norman Hadley).

Praise for Communing:

“…full of poems about family which are at the same time touching and funny, tender yet full of vitality…

“…It’s a quiet collection that radiates warmth – there’s no cynicism here. Michael Symmons Roberts says he likes poetry that displays sentiment, without crossing over into sentimentality, and I think Ben walks this line superbly…

“…Personal poetry, written in this way, transcends itself and results in poetry that is not only engaging and enjoyable, but that really matters.”
Keith Hutson, poet, playwright and editor

“…the poems connect on several levels, but their variety is also impressive within the short range of a pamphlet. Banyard celebrates those little moments of quiet, the noticings of a poet when they have all their “ears alive”, as W.S Graham puts it. I feel confident that the promise Banyard shows here will continue to develop and flourish.”
Angela Topping, Sabotage Reviews

“Ben Banyard’s impressive debut is notable for the way it not only documents a particular stage in the poet’s life, the loss of his mother, the birth of his children, but also succeeds in transforming these experiences and making them universal. Reading it I had a strong, disquieting sense of the fragility of life and of its beauty. A lovely book.”
Carole Bromley, poet, tutor and judge of the YorkMix Poetry Competition

“Ben Banyard conveys his themes of familial loss and remembrance through beautifully observed domestic details. These familiar moments, like the old telephone number that you never forget, connect us to our own experience.”
Rachael Clyne, poet and therapist

Genres: Poetry

26 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 9, 2024

About the author

Ben Banyard lives in Portishead, UK, where he writes poetry and short fiction. His work has appeared widely in print and online journals. His debut poetry pamphlet, Communing, was published by Indigo Dreams in February 2016, and his first full collection, We Are All Lucky, arrived in March 2018. Ben's latest collection, Hi-Viz, was published by Yaffle Press in November 2021.

Ben was previously the editor of the online journal Clear Poetry.

He blogs and shares mixtapes at https://benbanyard.wordpress.com

Reviews

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Communing’ is Ben Banyard’s debut pamphlet from Indigo Dreams Publishing, and it signals a fresh, original talent. Banyard’s poems are well-observed, pointed but never sly, honest but never unkind. The characters who people his poems, whether they are relatives, strangers in pubs, a neighbour and the foxes that share his garden, or a pigeon scouring the pavement outside Greggs, are clearly drawn, as are remembered rituals such as the dialling of a number on an old-fashioned telephone or the spooling of film in a pre-digital camera, giving his writing a palpable sense of the passing of seasons and years, the death of the older generation, the birth of a new.

I am only giving it four stars instead of five because I know he’s only going to get better and better, and a reviewer needs to have somewhere to go.