Praise and Poems

John McKeown is a precise and imaginative poet, refreshingly free of pretension or ego. A corrosive religiosity, frequently awash with sea images, is brilliantly distilled in ‘Cormorant’. His poems, direct, unsparingly candid and sparingly lyrical, pull no punches but soothe the bruises. From the bitterness of ‘Passing in the Office Corridor’ to the sweetness of ‘That Kiss’, from the line ‘I grow dark with life’ (‘Brandy and Soda’) to ‘the sky is all gently rustling light’ (‘Roadside Tress’); McKeown swings effortlessly between the poetic polarities of disillusionment and enchantment. This selection deserves regular revisiting

Alan Morrison