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The Goldsmith's Apprentice
The Goldsmith's Apprentice is Keith Chandler's first collection after moving to the West Midlands, an area which, with its industrial and craft heritage, influenced many of the new poems.
72 pages, Paperback
First published April 26, 2018
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July 27, 2018
Rubery Prize for Poetry 2018
These poems are rich with texture and close observation, consistently sharp throughout. The book opens with a series about people and their trades - the glassworkers of Amblecote, a gold-plating man, a glass eye fitter, and, not least, the Goldsmith's Apprentice himself, who, in the opening lines, is told to “change into ‘trashers’, canvas shoes/when you lock yourself in at eight.” The craftsmen promise to teach him how to “saw and buff;/to solder, blow pipe dangling from your lip/like a forgotten cheroot”. There is a weight of research behind such poems, and they're rendered in the confident voice of a seasoned poet. His greatest strength is his interest in people whose lives and character he captures with humour, subtlety, and intelligence. Particularly impressive is Chemo Nurse, which opens, “How wonderful you are, bursting late/into this waiting room of politeness and fear”; she is a women who exists in a world of “fake cheerfulness”, but who sustains her own integrity and status as “THE REAL THING”. It doesn't take a poet to notice such things, but it takes one to express them as forcefully and succinctly as Chandler does here. A superb collection.
These poems are rich with texture and close observation, consistently sharp throughout. The book opens with a series about people and their trades - the glassworkers of Amblecote, a gold-plating man, a glass eye fitter, and, not least, the Goldsmith's Apprentice himself, who, in the opening lines, is told to “change into ‘trashers’, canvas shoes/when you lock yourself in at eight.” The craftsmen promise to teach him how to “saw and buff;/to solder, blow pipe dangling from your lip/like a forgotten cheroot”. There is a weight of research behind such poems, and they're rendered in the confident voice of a seasoned poet. His greatest strength is his interest in people whose lives and character he captures with humour, subtlety, and intelligence. Particularly impressive is Chemo Nurse, which opens, “How wonderful you are, bursting late/into this waiting room of politeness and fear”; she is a women who exists in a world of “fake cheerfulness”, but who sustains her own integrity and status as “THE REAL THING”. It doesn't take a poet to notice such things, but it takes one to express them as forcefully and succinctly as Chandler does here. A superb collection.
Displaying 1 of 1 review