This collection maps Joseph Allen's life from the 'endless stretch' of schooldays through the triumphs and deaths of significant others, whose gravestones punctuate his journey. The poems are as diverse as they are evocative. He moves from the geography of emigration to the art of Cézanne with clarity and ease.
Colette Nic Aodha
Joseph Allen's poetry is that of the snapshot, the moment frozen in time. He has the eye of a good photographer, but also the ability to hint at the underlying emotion or event without its explicit description. He allows the reader to see the Northern Irish psyche at work, showing us our humour and our understanding of grief, all done in an understated and delicate manner with an unobtrusive voice.
Nigel McLoughlin
In Landscaping Joseph Allen maps the world around him with a shrewd eye and a steady hand. The work is honest, unpretentious; these poems are firmly planted in the ordinary, the quotidian. There are moments of wry humour as fault-lines in the community are recalled tellingly and with affection. Poignant and evocative, this is an engaging first collection.
John O'Donnell
Landscaping costs £7.00 and was published in 2003.
ISBN: 978-1-873226-63-6
Joseph Allen was born in Ballymena, Co Antrim in 1961 and currently lives there. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and he has published two pamphlets, but Landscaping is his first book-length collection. In his poetry he aims to show the variety and adversity of everyday lives. He tells of his folk-singer adventures, of people met and incidents experienced, of Ireland going with him on his travels - a reality he can neither fully explain nor fully escape. Also of the quietly desperate lives of ordinary people, in one sense peculiar to Northern Ireland, yet which we all know.
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