📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Herbs from Candlestick Press

 

We love herbs for their fragrance and for their taste. They can be food or medicine or perfume. In these beguiling poems, it seems that herbs have other powers too; they can remind us of the past and they can make us think of love – sometimes both at the same time:

“For the cold will come, though you turn to me soon,
Your eyes going serious green from hazel,
Your quick hand on my face the scent of basil.”

from ‘Basil’ by Gibbons Ruark

Elsewhere we encounter mint and basil growing by a roadside in the Mediterranean, garden marjoram covered in bees and the headiness of wild garlic in an English woodland. Wherever they grow, herbs seem to stop us in our tracks, asking us to bend to pick a stem or simply to rub their scent onto our fingers.

Perhaps this is what herbs are for: to make time stand still as we pause for a moment to wonder at their wild beauty.

Poems by Maggie Anderson, Sujata Byatt, Jane Burn, Jim Daniel’s, Isobel Dixon, John Fuller, Lyn Lifshin, Alfred Noyes, Gibbons Ruark and Robert Seatter.

Cover illustration by Sara Boccaccini Meadows

📖 My Review

I love an old fashioned herb garden and whilst I have never been successful in cultivating one, there is something special about walking through a well planted herb border, redolent with plants and flowers which give off their delicate aroma as you brush past. Rosemary and thyme, oregano and basil evoke memories of summer barbecues whilst the pungent spiciness of wild garlic reminds me of shady woodlands and delicate pathways, lavender takes me back to my mother’s garden and harvesting the fragrant flowers to make pot pourri or fragrant bags to scent linens.

Lavender by Alfred Noyes

‘Lavender, lavender.

That makes your linens sweet;

The hawker brings his basket 

Down the sooty street:..’

The Forest Knows by Jane Burn

‘..I walk on,

Until a plush of wild garlic ripples around my feet.

The white globe shaped flowers grow here

Like a private universe - …’

In Ten Poems about Herbs we are treated to a literary herbal as we explore poems which celebrate the glorious nature of herbs. It is real feast for the senses, from poems about basil, wild thyme, fennel and coriander, to reminisces about marjoram, mint and the wonderfully named viper’s bugloss. With a delightful cover, and end papers, this would make the perfect gift instead of a card for anyone who loves herbs either growing them, cooking with them, or simply enjoying their simple beauty.

About the Publisher 

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

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