11:52am Monday 22nd February 2010
By Harry Mead
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.
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