Nearly the Happy Hour by D A Prince (HappenStance Press, 2008, £8) signals the first full collection from this publisher. This week's poem is representative of the pace and pleasure in this collection – a tightly woven rattle, a beady poetic eye to the beauty of a moment.
BlackbirdHe's landed on his feet, this one,
blinking in criss-cross frenzy of ants
fired up on hot stones. They run
zigzag, anyhow, freestyle; black slants
of panic, pepper-dust, while he's claw deep
in tea-time, picking them off,
ripe as berries. He's hopping, squaring up,
landing new angles, straight in, trough-
eager, happy as Puck.
Just out of the nest, and can hardly believe his luck.
• You can borrow Nearly the Happy Hour from the Scottish Poetry Library, which also lends by post. Tel: 0131-557 2876, e-mail
reception@spl.org.uk or visit
www.spl.org.ukThe full article contains 156 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
