BM2652 Words and Whey at Milking

Words and Whey at Milking
Verses for Recitation in Summer
by Brien Masters.

There are those occasions in life when Nature presents us with an overwhelming experience of her fertility and beauty in the flowering of plants - clouds of lavender-blue jacaranda lining an avenue in Pretoria, a profusion of magenta Judas' tree blossom on an Athenian hillside, drifts of wild almond blossom gracing a deep barranca in Gran Canaria, or plumes of lilac wisteria cascading down the limestone facade of a Cotswold mansion. Whenever we re-enter such a shrine we feel again the uplift, the spiritual strength and renewal of that moment when the impact of the original experience first came our way.

The world of human creation too, of course, is full of such endowments. While we are surrounded with the peaks of human achievements - the design of Sydney Opera House, the choreography of a Classical ballet, the invention of the turbine, the composition of Beethoven's Choral Symphony - we have as much to be grateful for amongst the foothills of life: every time we board a train or communicate with someone on the other side of the world, or boil a kettle ... and perhaps greatest of all, every time we are fortunate enough to be engaged in human speech.

In this small selection of verse, Brien Msters' several-sided interest in speech focuses on such elements of poetry as rhythm, metre, rhyme, repetition, structure, alliteration, assonance. By lifting language off the page into the air - reciting poetry to oneself or to and with others - however unprepossessing the poem or however momentary the sound in question. As in his collection of Spring Verses, the author draws his subject matter from everyday, bygone and current experiences, from future glimpses and from the world of imagination, as inspiration for clothing them in the spoken word.

Spring, autumn and winter editions are also available.

A book by Brien Masters
Stitched paperback.
40 pages.
21 x 15 cms. Approximately 8 x 6 inches.