RadicalRooney.com is Radical poetry packages
Title
THE CENTURY COLLECTION
by
J.A. ROONEY
Now available from all major booksellers and Tesco, etc. But cheaper on Amazon
Description
Excerpted from the website description:
- Radical Poetry offers the Radical Collection of Radical Poetry, on Radical subjects such as Pain and Poverty, from the Radical pen of Radical Irish Poet, Radical Rooney; also hundreds of top quality Radical Photographs and Radical Haiku, Radical stories from the imagination of Radical Rooney
Additional Information
WHAT FOLLOWS IS A REVIEW OF "THE CENTURY COLLECTION" BY TODD MERCER, FOR 'FOREWORD' MAGAZINE' The Poet earns the nickname "Radical" by refusing to compromise in his rhetoric, while observing suffering through the eyes of a
multitude of victims and persecutors. Nearly all these poems are based on broad catagories; life, love, tragedy, poverty, praise and so on.
The poet prefers to write about specific actual events, including Hiroshima's destruction by the "Enola Gay" and the Kings Cross Tube tragedy, which is commemorated in a poem Prince Charles is said to have liked. The poet does not shy away from indicting a host of villains
(by name) with his pen, or commemorating good people who met early demises.
The structures feature end-rhymes and no punctual termination. The explanatory notes that accompany so many of the poems provide
grounding content for each, notably improving comprehension and enjoyment.
Some of the least affected pieces are less about mass tragedies or widespread societal problems than they are about the despair of individuals. No one has ever erected a statue to those unfortunate enough to have survived failed eye surgery, but Radical Rooney puts the reader squarely inside the head of someone in that
situation in "Dark for Me";
"When at noon the sun lit my life with fear, it was still dark, And all that I could see, were dark explosions of mystery"
Walt Whitman's ebullient feeling of nostalgia in "Once I passed through a
Populous City" is turned inside out in "The Runaway";
"As he stalked along the street, I saw his frightened face When he entered slow this city, devoid of love or pity"
Though some poems ring of wonder or urge faith in God, outrage is most prevalent, and Rooney's outrage has an unfortunate tendency to steamroll the artistic balance. Some members of the I.R.A., animal testers at cosmetic companies, war loving Generals and others the poet opposes aren't outlined in complex portraits of positive qualities vying with flaws. Instead their unadulterated villiany is reinforced to the maximum, creating cartoonish figures who relish destruction.
His imaginative turns of phrase are arranged carefully enough, but he truly stands out for a limitless concern for all sorts of downtrodden classes and luckless bystanders. Rooney sees pain as unavoidable, writing
"We must all suffer
For without pain there can't be-
Any compassion" .............as one of his Haiku.
Cheers to this voice for the voiceless. by Todd Mercer, for Foreword Magazine
