| That Water Speaks in Tongues |
Siobhán Campbell
ISBN-13 978-1-906285-23-4
PB £4.00
Rob Hindle’s compelling first collection ranges widely in both subject and approach. Whether occupying the chaotic insecurity and violence of Iraq, the contradictions of modern Spain, or the landscapes of personal territories, these poems collate images, voices and narratives around a number of important themes and oppositions: what fear can do, and love; the nature of displacement; the need for community and a shared identity.
There are acts of cruelty here, and desperation; there is also testimony to the randomness of destruction. A Sicilian village, high up on Etna, survives untouched by its ‘fires and spit’; whereas mortars drop indiscriminately on pilgrims in Karbala.
Yet there is hope, too: that even while fear divides a dentist and his twitchy gun-toting patient (in ‘Baghdad Dentist’), it reveals their common humanity. Assured and precise, allusive yet committed, this collection explores the nature of humanity with passion and clarity.