Review of Requiem by David Donnison

There is much written about grief and loss, much that is personal, much that is theoretical, even clinical. This collection of poems transcends the personal through David Donnison’s skill with his choice of images and words to add the “sharper edge to thought” possible in the poetic form. Poems have been written to give voice to his grief, and in choosing to share these as a tribute to his wife, Kay Carmichael, and her many friends, he has extended his experience of impending and then devastating loss to a wider audience.

I recommend this collection of poems to any reader looking for affirmation of the rollercoaster of feelings surrounding the death of someone deeply significant – from self-centredness to the beginnings of reconnection with a shared world, then onward and outward to simple noticing of the wider world. For me, this is so tenderly expressed in Loch Garten Shore. David Donnison uses a variety of forms from conversational to descriptive, each poem including at one point or more, the poignantly intimate expression of how grief has pervaded every aspect of his life and how this has touched the way he sees his life and life around him.

The pamphlet is beautifully presented with two of the poet’s paintings – an elemental essence of land and sea and sky as passionate and powerful in images as the words of the poems.

Rosie Hopkins

Lapidus Journal, 22 April 2012