Lucy Roleff - Somewhere

Sunshine Realism

Having a few days' break in Falmouth, Cornwall - the idea to combine this with meeting up with a good friend and review the poems we are co-editing for an anthology of poetry written about music, that is until on the first day, yesterday, I put my back out, badly, and thus I had to cancel that visit today as I struggle to recover and become mobile again. Sunday was dreadful.

The saving grace has been today's beautiful weather, the fact I could get in the car to drive locally for a coffee and to get some shopping, but also to go back to the coffee place directly on the beach for some lunch. But that was all I could manage and it didn't require much walking at the painful angle I am able to incline to, relieved somewhat by also getting some strong painkillers with that necessary food shopping.

Another pleasure today was reading Lucy Roleff's collection of poems in Somewhere - sitting outside in the sun this afternoon - a collection I acquired after also purchasing and reviewing her EP Longbows here, and where I enjoyed the poetry in her lyrics. To read these in the Cornish November sunshine was as soothing as the large dosage of paracetomal and ibuprofen.

Lucy's writing is best described as staccato snatches of what is observed, the poetry noun-heavy to reflect perhaps the illustrator aspect of her artistic make-up, but also, as referenced in her pamphlet's brief biog., her being 'obsessed with realism'. The poems are not then complicated by overwrought or overstated emotions: judgement and interpretation instead left to the reader of these vivid descriptive vignettes. My favourite is the title poem which is printed here in the photo, and if you can't quite read, then it is all the more reason to purchase the pamplet yourself here: this comes with a free download of Three Songs (Demo 2010) which provides further insight into the musical aspect of her artistic make-up, these similarly focused on vocal and lyrics as with Longbows, and I like particularly in these demos the reverb/echo of the guitar work. I do recommend Lucy's work and look forward to more in the future.

I also look forward to a recovered back.