Sally Richards

“In this New Age collection, Sally Richards casts off the trappings of an artificial age and unabashedly addresses the timeless complaints of an abused Mother Earth, groaning beneath Man’s ruinous girding. Richards’ pantheistic eye compellingly confronts the perennial ontological angst of our species – whose ‘business is in wakefulness’ (Nietzsche); and, shunting an undercurrent of thanatophobia, extends the metaphor to a chilling ‘what if i’m somebody’s dream/ and they simply decide/ to wake/ up’ (‘and so to bed…’). Suddenly Douglas Adams’ solipsistic God, oblivious to his Creation, absent-mindedly watering pot plants in a suburban void, springs to mind. But Richards’ is a darker take: humanity as a spoor of seedlings propagated from the same parent organism; or, darker still, blight on a plant; a rash on a body; a phantasmagoria of thought-forms on a brain – indeed, dreams threatened by wakefulness. But such bottomless questions are softened in their ‘depth-charged reverberation’ by the lift and flight of Richards’ pastoral lyricism, balancing ‘each crack of the ice’ (‘Mount wood pond’) of abstract with ‘voile-draped’ (‘The Cottage’) tangible, as only true poetry can. With Plathian parabulia and a talent – akin to the early lyrics of Kate Bush – at poeticising the saturnine, Richards’ sepia-like poems paint brightly on dark canvases, while never shying from sharpening up so the ‘Broad textured trunks/ loom/ out of soft-focus’ (‘The Cottage’). This is another sublime, phantasmal collection from the author of the equally beguiling Stained Glass.”

Alan Morrison, author of The Mansion Gardens

“It opens very strongly with The Silent Grove and Until and then you seem to have a most searching middle section of 7 or 8 poems from Aeon (which I know well) to Earth … I think these central explorative poems are where your strength lies as a poet. You manage to create very successfully, I think, a doubt in the mind of the reader concerning the insignificance of man within the cosmos by way of your own experience. You achieve this by making it all too apparent. Some of the questing poems are quite uplifting despite their potential broad canvas for gloom so that one comes away from the Collection nourished. Human life is served well. I feel you are at your most penetrative when you deal with the spirit - which you don't shy away from as I might. Your poetry actually says something which is quite rare in modern poetry I think.”

Nigel Humphreys, Poet & Author

With the ability to weave works with an intimacy and grace that helps them flow past the eye seamlessly, Sally Richards has presented astute, observational messages with great sophistication here in Through the Silent Grove. Her passionate and often compelling descriptions make for a puissantly emotive compilation – one that confirms her status as a true Border town talent.

Mat Woods, Deputy Editor Country & Border Life

Sally's book is delightful and small enough to fit into my pocket, which is why I carry it about with me so that I can then read them when I get a few minutes. They can take me away from the mundane and stressful to the sublime in a few words which can calm and soothe me as well as make me smile. A perfect gift for the self and for friends and family - if you want to part with it!

June Meagher - Marketing Manager for a global news service and member of the National Federation of Spiritual Healers.