Patrick Jones
Inviting the light
Published by Self-Published
January 29, 2024
Inviting the light is the latest offering from Welsh poet and playwright Patrick Jones, written in response to the death of his parents. Presented in a punk pamphlet or DIY fanzine style and accompanied by a number of spoken word recordings, set to music and soundscapes found online, it is a powerful collection of seventeen poems that offer a personal insight into his grief and subsequent healing. It's not the first time he's recorded his work, with Patrick previously featured on his album Memory and Amnesia and the politically charged record Apostate Psalms made in collaboration with punk legend John Robb of The Membranes. And more recently, he provided the lyrics for James Dean Bradfield, lead singer and guitarist of his brother Nicky Wire's band Manic Street Preachers, on his solo album. Even in Exile.
The death of a loved one is a terrible experience. It confronts us with feelings of survivor's guilt and anguish of loss. And what greater cause of existential dread than losing both parents? It presents us with the disheartening realization that your older guardians are gone, and the stark realization that we may very well be next.
Unsurprisingly, there's a deep vein of angst running through this collection, with Patrick directly referring to the death of his father Allen in 'You (For My Father)' and his mother Irene in 'Marcescence in Spring (To My Mother)' . Both poems include tender anecdotes that reveal how attached and dependent he was, with a tactile quality as his father prepared him for all eventualities with his knife.'sharpened // ready,” while his mother provided him with a sense of comfort and security that he is not yet ready to let go of.
Such dire feelings are further expanded on “Anxiety Fog,” “Waving. I'm not drowning.” and “The Stillness We Seek,” where he deftly articulates the overwhelming feelings of loss and the frail mind's struggle to come to terms with the enormity of our certain fate. “Breathe Against The Hurricanes” reads almost like an NHS leaflet, offering both prosaic and aesthetic guidance on how to deal with the most dire moments of despair.
But as bleak as the certainty of death is, Patrick also offers us hope. The first poem, “This Scar is Beautiful,” is a stoic response to anguish and tragedy, searching for the brilliance revealed in the cracks of your life. This reminds us of the Japanese practice of kintsugi, repairing tableware with veins of powdered gold, making something beautiful out of the broken. “The Swim” also suggests that we are somehow attuned to surviving the worst.
Patrick looks to the regenerative power of nature as a means of healing. “This Immortal Soul” challenges us to recognize our natural elements that combine to become something greater. He implores us to unite with those who would see us grow and avoid the “others” WHERE “chop and chop” in “Gardens” and draws our attention to the beauty and possibilities of nature in “lovesung (A Meditation)”. Ostensibly referring to the online culture wars that offer nothing but the stalemate of violence, directing us to “A bud not a weapon“.
Hope, Patrick suggests, lies in this combination of stoicism and the innate potential for growth within all of us. This relief can only come after we fully acknowledge the worst, but that is the way things are and not necessarily the ultimate end. His parents passed on their love and experience to him, and hewill do the same.This is perhaps best summed up in “Hold This Dust” where he asks “Resurrection or resignation? // But it is submission // the bold admission that you can go on?'
We must each face the absurdity of life with an inevitable death waiting and the pain of loss on this journey is inevitable and can easily be overwhelming. Patrick is to be congratulated for bravely exposing his personal experiences of family death to the world. It transforms this pain into a beautiful form of cosmic salvation that we can all share. Painting such vivid pictures with words Inviting the lightnot only does she pay wonderful tribute to the parents she so clearly loved, but she also carries their noble legacy to the world.
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Author Rating: 8/10
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