Sticky by Andy Croft (Flambard Press, Newcastle, NE1 1SG, £8) (From The Northern Echo)

Sticky by Andy Croft (Flambard Press, Newcastle, NE1 1SG, £8)

11:52am Monday 22nd February 2010 in

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FIRMLY established as a major North-East poet, Andy Croft enjoys the distinction of having lines from one of his poems emblazoned on street signs in Middlesbrough, where he lives.

Published in this collection, the poem, Human Estate, looks back and forward over more than 2,000 years of human settlement in “this ironage town”:

How hard it is to contemplate

Those cold and barefoot lives,

And yet in this new-built estate

The will to build survives.

Croft ranges with apparent ease from mercilessly savaging mendacious politicians to revealing his tenderest feelings. Certain to strengthen his reputation, this collection is dedicated to his late father and contains this affectionate tribute to his mother at 80:

The longest lives can sometimes

seem defined

By words like grandma, mother,

daughter, wife –

Supporting roles which, when they

are combined,

Suggest perhaps a kind of

back-stage life.

And yet we know the opposite is

true,

That as we try to learn our lines

we find

Within the parts we too have been

assigned

How much our lives have been

defined by you.