Sally Evans was reviewing The Year of the Crab by Gordon Meade in the Callander Bookshop, which she runs. On leaving the book on the counter for a few minutes, Sally returned to find her copy of the book had been sold. What better review for Gordon Meade’s poetry collection on his experience of cancer. Sally Evans says:
If you overcome cancer you are a winner, not merely a survivor, argues Meade in one of his poems. Using the craft he has learned writing of birds and animals, he firmly and gracefully describes a whole range of effects of cancer on his life: how the doctors did or didn’t interact with him, how he felt, how he determined to beat it by reading and writing. The poems refer to various gurus including Eve Ensler and Plath. ‘1) Why have you got cancer. 2) Do you want to live?’ Is the header quote in one poem. His reading of cancer is not medical so much as confrontational. Writers who have overcome cancer and dealt with it repay our attention as we follow his poems.
Poetically the book is mature and sound. In its theory and approach, it has relevance for everyone involved with cancer – surely a majority of readers, when friends or relatives are hit by the disease.
You can read all of Sally Evans’s review here.
Buy a copy of Gordon Meade’s new collection for £10 plus p&p: The Year of the Crab
Add in Les Animots: a Human Bestiary, also by Gordon Meade, with images by Doug Robertson, for £13. If you buy two or more books from this website, p&p is free
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