The Underground Stream

by Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke

'In this collection, Townsville poet Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke brings together poems penned in Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton sessions at the House of Prayer, and a range of other poems including several from the 1980s. As a whole, they illustrate Michael's worldview, that includes the sacredness of being. Please open at any page and enjoy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

129 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Regina Andreassen]

I really wanted to like this collection of poems, alas, most poems did not touch me. The Underground Stream has much potential but it is slightly overdone. There are many abstract concepts -perhaps too many- and the author attempts to explore interesting themes, yet, they are not effectively interwoven. Some poems came across as mere concoctions of words which strung together were devoid of deep meaning; there were other poems that attempted to develop several ideas at once, but the execution was done superficially. In some instances I felt that rather than reading a poem I was reading a list of names of notable authors l, artists, writers, political Finland controversial figures, and/or allusions to mythological imagery, yet often there was not a well developed and cohesive theme. Admittedly, there were some lovely poems, those were usually not verbose. Obviously, in poetry, the reader doesn’t always need to understand the meaning behind a poem, but a reader should still experience a moderate aesthetic pleasure or some form of reward while reading a collection of poems; in this case, almost half of the time I was dissatisfied or felt indifference. I was realistic: I didn’t expect to read Arthur Rimbaud, Baudelaire or Verlaine, I had moderate expectations… but I did expect a bit more from The Underground Stream.

Overall, The Underground Stream failed to move me. I am probably not the target audience for this book. I can see someone else enjoying - even loving this work of poetry, and since poetry speaks to people differently, I must consider that before rating The Underground Stream. I have conflicting feelings so, in the name of fairness I will not be rating this book.

I have another book also published by Fitzgerald-Clarke, as an editor, the book is an anthology called A Pre-elegy Garland; I am looking forward to reading it, I sense that A Pre-elegy Garland is going to be far better than The Underground Stream…. We will see.