Point Me at the Stars

This book is the second collection by Noel Williams; like his first collection I was given a copy of this by my friend Ian (whose own book you should also check out). This is a much shorter collection, but the themes are far more consistent - these are poems about distance and closeness, isolation and ambition. Heron-dream speaks of that which is tantalisingly out of reach and Appreciating physics applies this same feeling to belief; the later poem Reality check brings to mind knowable comforts in the midst of desperation; and the final in the collection Nocturne with lake and astronomer seems to be considering the loneliness of perception. A concise and powerful little book of poetry - would recommend.

Out of Breath

This book is Noel Williams's debut poetry collection. I was given a copy by my friend Ian, whose wife was a friend of Williams before his recent death. This is a diverse and powerful collection, and I really enjoyed reading it. The opening poem, Snow on the edge, is positively pregnant with expectation; leading into the quietness of On the verge of the M40 and the stillness-yet-adventurousness of The island, the morose fatalism of Daphne, the summery atmosphere of Sunburn and the paranoia of Safe house, the wistfulness of Refraction, the defeated undefeatabilitiness of Heartbeat, the impressive quasi-haiku sequence that is A rose of broken stone, then a pair of sequences that take on a sombre anti-war tone in Till Death and Kim Phuc, and finally the indefatigable hope of the closing title poem. The sheer breadth of emotionality in these poems is startling, yet they all have a similar human warmth to them that breathes through the deft control of their language. A collection well worth reading.