Expectations by Gary Beck

I was sent an email review copy of Expectations, the new poetry collection from Gary Beck. Beck is very aware of the issues that confront us in our modern lives and writes passionately about war and urban deprivation, education and parenting, among other issues. He alsi, though he is very much centred in today's world, realises the debt we owe to history, or perhaps more correctly, how little we've learnt since ancient Rome. There is therefore a series of historical poems with clear modern day parallels (eg Ancient Carthage, Tired Knight). Nature and the environment appear briefly and occasionally in this book, often showing how difficult the co-existence between humans and nature, for example a yellow butterfly coming into conflict with traffic in Hazards of the Road. I'll end with a brief quote from Peace the Panther:

The black shape slides ashore
through cringing waves
frothing green, white spume,
landing on a littered beach
coated with plastic, glass, metal
submerging the sand


Expectations by Gary Beck, published by Rogue Scholars Press.

I have previously published five of Gary's poems over on Bolts of Silk. You can read them here.