Splinters

This is a beautiful book. Ray Hollingsworth's third collection of poetry is housed within a small, glossy collection of neon-lit, over-saturated and reversed photographic images, black, white and blue, generating an immediate twilight, urban ambience before you even read a word. Long time readers of Spike will know I a have a deep antipathy to most poetry - but I like Ray's stuff a lot because I understand it. And because it resonates with me, it's my worldview articulated in part. I don't have to decipher it only to discover the supposedly learnedness hides a deep-rooted banality: with Blueprint For Life, I can read any piece in seconds and walk away with a new thought in my mind. That's what poetry should do. A short, sharp, shock to the brain, just like your favourite song. Each sentence of Ray's tells me something and it transports me straight back into London: his is the mythical London of possibilities and pain, for sure, the usual yellow brick road fouled with shit and syringes, but it's also the London I undeniably recognise. For me, currently living 6000 miles away, that's powerful.

People talk about authors having "a voice" - for me, what I like most about Blueprint For Life is that there is a singularity of intent to it - like a great album, every element in it is gloriously different, but it forms a perfect whole. I like that sense of cohesion, vision even. Someone who's sat down and executed the book from beginning to end, not just the words, but the images, the cover, the font. It's all important. Great care has gone into this book, and it radiates out from it, black and white and blue.

Plus anyone who comes up with the line

"so are we in love or are we a habit"

deserves to be a bestseller pronto.

Ray Hollingsworth has two websites: Erotic Cafe and Cult Poet. He has two previous books available, The Erotic Cafe and The Pornstar And The Priest

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