Preview - In The Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson

In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This latest collection of 'micro poetry' from Frank Watson is divided into ten sections of uneven length, each clustered around a theme – which may be as general as 'Time And Space', as specific as 'An Entrance To The Tarot Garden' (which takes us through the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana), or as idiosyncratic as 'Percussion Mind', which explores the poet's love of Jazz.

When interviewed about his preference for short, image-focussed verses, Watson explained that whilst working on translations of ancient Japanese and Chinese poetry he came to appreciate the social function of short verses like the haiku - often composed on the spot as a greeting or a thankyou when visiting or leaving a home or gathering. This idea of 'social poetry' - a brief, pithy verse conveying one central, visual image – took root and became his preferred poetic form; an ideal one to share on social media such as Twitter and Instagram!

A micro-poem should conjure up a lasting, vivid image in the mind of the reader, and Watson does this splendidly in some verses whilst falling short in others. Phrases such as 'on a blue evening/ swimming in Jazz' (Interlude, Percussion Mind), 'spinning /into centuries/of cracked earth/ with stories told/ of continents/ that drift apart' (Continents, Within the Weeping Woods), and 'Because she does not seek/the golden bird/ it rests on her branch' (Empress, An Entrance To the Tarot Garden) are eloquent and powerful; others such as 'when the crows/ carve their claws/into the electric night' (Hemlock, Beneath The Raven Moon) and 'mist rises in the aftermath/and whistles the sound/of graveyards in the wind' (Battlefield, Omens) are clumsy and make no grammatical sense – in a micro-poem, attention to detail is everything, and I do feel that Watson sometimes misses his mark.

Having said that, his poetry is haunting and evocative, and the beautiful art that intersperses the pages (including paintings that have inspired a particular verse) captures the mood of his words perfectly. If you love words and images, this is a book to treasure and dip into time and again.



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