Starspin

Starspin is a reflective collection which includes poems published in a wide range of leading magazines and journals including Carillon; Dream Catcher; Envoi; Labrys; Lunar Poetry; Manifold; Northwords Now; Orbis; Other Poetry;Poetry Monthly; Smiths Knoll; Stride; Tears in the Fence; The Journal; Ver; Wandering Dog. These poems are a reminder that all life comes at a price but that we should value that cost and the benefits that ensue.
Barrasford Young''s poems are masterpieces of observation offering the reader a vivid landscape of poignant well-crafted poetry. His long time love of books and literature as a retired publisher and bookshop owner offers the reader a lens to see the world of wide experience.
This poem from the book exemplifies his wry observation, empathy and descriptive skills:
The unnecessary death of an otter cub in a new hydro scheme

Dark hydro water turbines back to light
behind my house.
At its high intake a cub caught
in unnatural rock

fights

concrete scours her cubsilk pelt

concrete strips her skin to gut

her bones break her will fails

in wild trapped water
that should have buoyed her
she fought

and did she not feel terror
at that slow closing of body,
fear the dark claws
fingering through her eyes?

She did not know of death,
but felt something fail
and found no gentleness.

Not being aware of extinction
makes it no easier.

"Barrasford Young is at his best with his sharp natural descriptions and recreation of scene and place."
Pauline
Kirk, Editor, Fighting Cock Press