FLICKERINGS
A Collection of Poetry
by
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"Like fast-waning trace of nightlong dreams, the elusive sense of purpose and elation nudge the consciousness and seek from mundane chores to capture center-stage and recognition seek. Lightning-quick and just as unpredictable these sensations flicker at the edge of everyday experience and bring a tantalizing Immanence; a sense that Truth and Ecstasy now hover near." "Have you ever awoken from some moving and disturbing dream, so bowled over by what you just experienced that you searched in vain for a paper and pencil to record it? There was something there at the edge of consciousness that was almost an epiphany or revelation, perhaps even an answer to a fundamental question, you felt, but it was so fleeting, so ephemeral and so much smoke on the wind of awakening that words could hardly express it. "To make matters worse, we are all handicapped by the necessity of resorting to making crude noises with our mouths or to making squiggles on a page, in a vain attempt to transcribe the complexity and speed of the workings of the mind. Yet language is all we have with which to even attempt to convey that quicksilver process called thought. "Poetry can be both a compressed version of that ongoing stream of consciousness and, quite beyond the importance of the 'message,' it can also be an exploration and celebration of the richness and power of language, of and for its own sake." "
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About the Book
Flickerings is not just an unusual and multi-faceted collection of the author's poetry. While he uses the poetry form to tackle often disturbing themes, such as the search for the meaning of life, death among family and friends and even large social issues such as consumerism and the environment, he does so with delicacy, wry humour and, through, a love of the musicality of the 'language' of poetry. Nor is this anthology of his works by theme a mere collection of different thematic topics, poetic forms and structures, but it offers a discussion of the medium of poetry itself. Yates has an extensive background in the communications field and has written for print and broadcasting, as well as teaching Communications and writing. In an introduction to the collection, he attempts to define the medium of poetry, both as an art form and as a medium of communication. As he puts it, not every writer can write deathless and beautiful prose....."so, sometimes, especially in moments of personal indulgence, some of us write poetry instead. For, in poetry, there are no holds barred. Mystery is the staple of the medium and music is the staff on which it is most often written......there is hardly any point in resorting to the poetic form if the result just looks and sounds like a shipwrecked fragment from a novel. What the poem can—and too rarely does— is to convey a subject or experience more lyrically, perhaps less explicitly and, ideally, in a nutshell. The poem should also have the potential to produce resonances or recognitions in the reader about similar ideas or experiences....and, failing such recognition, the reader can at least enjoy the mystery and the music..." And he concludes, "...prose is most often concerned with the denotative and explicit, while poetry relies more on the connotative and implicit...delving into the inner dimension....the more private and mysterious one of the senses themselves—of the 'mindscape,' if you wish." This, the author illustrates with his anthology and, especially, with the poem "Flickerings," from which the book takes its title.
About the Author
Alan J. Yates was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland but moved to Canada in his late teens, where he pursued a career in journalism and broadcasting that would span more than three decades, most of it in news and program production with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He pursued an academic career in parallel, with two graduate degrees in communications from McGill University in Montreal and taught communications at the University of Ottawa, before retiring. Alan currently lives in Ottawa with his second wife, Carla Curran and makes writing and photography his pastimes. This is his fifth publication with Trafford. He had two children, Valerie and Neil, with his late wife, Ida Panzini Yates and has two grandchildren, Ida and Findlay, born to his daughter, Valerie.