Book Review - Catching The Light: A New Anthology of Cricket Poetry

I have always enjoyed poetry - GOOD poetry - since my high school days. Studying the poets of The Great War, the Romantic poets and the Metaphysical has stuck with me to this day. Moving forward, I have appreciated the works of such diverse writers as Matt Mcginn, Pam Ayres  and Brian Bilston.

So to a great extent, receiving this book in the post was very much a case of preaching to the converted. Throw in the greatest of my sporting loves, cricket and it was sure to have something to appeal. 

There are some very good poems in this volume, which admirably collects together some of the finest of recent years. I have to admit to most enjoying a poem with an obvious rhythm and ideally rhyme, which some may consider the words of a philistine, but I am old enough now to know what I like and, indeed, like what I know. 

I especially liked The Game That's Never Done by Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon, while Luck Of The Toss - Rustic Cricket in Derbyshire by Alfred Cochrane was always going to appeal - and did.

But there is plenty here to capture the imagination, make you think and make you smile. 

I have to applaud the publishers of this volume, Fairfield Books. This may or may not be a big seller, but it is important that these poems are out there and gathered into one place. 

The format is excellent, the book compact and it is a very enjoyable read

Catching the Light: A New Anthology of Cricket Poetry is edited by Nicholas Hogg and Tim Beard and published by Fairfield Books