Life Given

The craft in this, Graeme Hetherington’s third collection of poems, is like that of the tapestry maker. In short lyrics of sinewy tetrameter and assonantal music, the poet’s dark and bright strands of narrative, of thematic concern, are interwoven in a technique that allows the shape of an individual life to disclose itself from the commingling and recurrence of vivid personal and historical recollections. In the individual lyrics there are scenes of chill home life and school barbarities. These