The Red Book

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The Red Book

Category:	Poetry
Author:	Ben Barton
Publisher:	PlaneTree
Price:	£4.99
ISBN:	1-84294-180-1
Pages:	58
Reviewed in issue:	4

The Red Book is typical of a good poetry book: a few poems I just didn’t get, some that were okay and several of them simply blew me away. The cover design is also fetching, and I liked Barton’s introduction – the man clearly has a way with words.

My favourite poem, the first poem, entitled ‘Re-birth Remembered’, is written in colourful language. Barton paints scenes full of vivid imagery which pulls strong and powerful emotions from the reader. The Red Book really is a rather good read, fairly priced, but most of all you will find that some of the author’s poems will stay with you for a long time.

I had only two issues with this book. The first is the punctuation – or more accurately, the lack of it. Whilst accepting that the poems belong to Ben Barton, and they are therefore his to punctuate as he sees fit, I got the feeling that the punctuation was either missing due to poor proofreading or it was bad, inconsistent punctuation by the poet himself.

The second issue I have with this book is the print size. Why did the author choose such an insignificant printer’s font and size? On the one hand, a poem should stand or fall on its own merit, but on the other hand, as much as the content of the work is important, so too is the design and the layout, and the way in which the poems occupy their space on the page. A great pity.

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