The Well, The Key & The Pen is the collection of poems written by Stuart A. McIntosh between 1981 and 1987, tackling themes of growing up, adolescence angst, early dalliances into romance, historical fact and fable often using word play, puns and humour. It was initially printed in 1983 and contained 37 poems. It was revised in 1987 and expanded to 75 poems. This latest edition printed in 2020 has seen the poet revisit the collection and, where he felt necessary, Stuart has “tweaked, tinkered with and… reworked” some. They are still true to the thoughts of a young man witnessing and experiencing life from his late teen years to his mid-twenties, albeit now presented by a man considerably older, if not wiser.
SAM writes poetry both using modern language and classical literature, as such you spend your time moving from world to world, sometimes enchanted sometimes confused, but as you sometimes have to look things up on wikipedia you will come away better educated... and enthralled.
I wrote it so I'm bound to give it this rating and it'll help raise the average when/if others rate it. This was my first collection of poetry, having begun writing in the late 'eighties. I prefer to write in rhyme but occasionally release those shackles if it feels right. After this first sojourn into publishing my poems and inflicting them onto the world, albeit a select part of it, I continued to write and have several more collections due for release soon. Hopefully you'll find something in the books to provoke a thought, a chuckle or a memory