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WINTER CROSSINGS Shoestring Press ISBN 978-1-912524-62-4 £10.00
Most of all, Lykiard appears to be saying that we should honour the
dead in a more realistic and less emotional way, recognising each
person for who they were and what they were actually like rather
than idealising them. This very grounded, secular, humanistic
philosophy of death is in keeping with Lykiard's detectable
philosophy of life, one primarily of carpe diem, of sensation and
experience, of love and travel, of socialising and socialism, of art
and rationalism, of what the Greeks termed eudaimonia (happiness),
of epicureanism and its goal of achieving a state of ataraxia
(tranquillity and freedom from fear -could there be a better
destination for the human mind?), of the mortal soul as opposed to
the eternal spirit.
Winter Crossings is
once more testament to how the poetic gifts of Alexis Lykiard, far
from diminishing with advancing years, grow greater and more sage
like with age, gifting us ever more valuable and surprising insights
from a sprightly mind that in some aspects still seems so young.
Alan Morrison The Recusant
I found a continuity and wholeness in the collection which bound it
all together – you avoid the easy lyricism that Yeats bequeathed us
I think, and go for a stronger narrative style. So many of the poems
tell a story: Everyone Their
Island, and a brilliant political poem about Israel,
Labouring The Point: A Colonial Question… I can’t think of a
better volume about getting old and viewing what’s left through the
poetic lens!!
John Daniel - Poet & Author
Your writing is wonderfully strong, touching too and occasionally
laugh-out-loud funny. The honesty of your personal patches I find
fine indeed.
Kate Westbrook – Artist & Musician
“I read and enjoyed it very
much. It’s a beautiful collection.”
Karolina Urbaniak, artist and publisher, Infinity Land Press
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