Bloom & Grow
Peter J Donnelly
Alien Buddha Press, 2025
ISBN: 9798313441412
Ebook, 43 ppg.
Bloom & Grow by Peter J Donnelly is not just a book of poetry; it is a book of memories. Of pets lost and people long gone. Of times spent enjoying meals and the company of others.
The book starts with memories of someone who never had pets. Why, the author supposes, is a mystery. We are presented with assumptions:
Was it the thought of a flap
on her back door,
saucers of food, milk
and water on the floor
of her kitchen with no utility area,
or heaven forbid, litter trays? (page 6)
Then the next poem is about a cat, Willow, that was once a part of the author’s life. It’s a sweet poem. Fur babies leave paw prints on our hearts long after they are gone.
The next poems are reflections of people who are now gone. The memories the author has of knowing them. The poem “The Morning of Your Funeral” on page 10 is about the arduous task of clearing away the things that belonged to a loved one. I have experienced such a thing, but my experience was not for the home of someone I was related to or someone I knew. It was a friend’s father, and as I did this, I noticed the calendar on the wall that was still on the month when he had been taken to the hospital, the records he probably enjoyed listening to, and the books he kept on shelves that he must have read or cited from time to time. All of those things were a part of this person’s life. So these lines in the poem were ones I understood:
Clearing your house was
like taking apart the pieces
of a completed jigsaw, but one that hadn’t
been recently done - the image
had been there for fifty years,
almost unchanged.
This poem makes me think about the things we leave behind after we pass away. Sometimes I wonder what will become of all of my own things. I already told my husband and kids that they are free to take of my stuff before passing it all on to other people in the family, but I always wonder about how hard such a task would be for someone who is essentially disposing of the things from a person’s life that MEANT something to them. Things that were important to them. How hard it must be to part with it all.
I am fortunate to have some things which once belonged to people no longer in this world, and I sometimes wonder how the people that owned them enjoyed them while still alive. Did my friend’s dad write letters at his desk, which is now in my bedroom? Did a friend often use a music encyclopedia which I now have in my living room, to look things up or for trivia?
Are we ever attached to our possessions in the afterlife? I wonder about this too, because several years ago, my mom told me that she wanted all of my writing when I die, but she passed away first. I like to think she is able to enjoy all of my writing in spirit – even the boxes of writing that were left behind when I moved to Oregon. These thoughts came to me as I read the poem “Where It Hangs Now” on page 11, a poem which talks about a drawing that once belonged to someone which was “sandwiched between ivory paper,/its label folded over the top/of a cardboard window mat.” Here the author wonders if the original owner of this signed drawing would notice how it is now framed and:
we’ll never know what you think
of the frame I bought in Northallerton,
or the picture’s new home on the wall
of my entrance hall. It looks down
on your Chinese floor vase
and your small purple one
on the half moon table,
opposite the photo of you both
at Auntie H’s wedding.
I could say it’s as if you’re admiring it
but from the angle, it’s more like
your eyes are averted.
The title poem on page 13 is about two plant foods that had belonged to someone the author knew, whose plants he cares for now. Here he ponders:
but the one labelled Bloom
had less in it than the one labelled Grow.
Did you use more of it
or had you just had it longer?
The author uses these thoughts as a comparison in how he cares for the plants and how discarding one after its use was a big moment for him, because it was “the first thing of yours I’ve thrown out.”
The other poems in this book are about reflections from the author’s life, how times have changed, as well as poems about food (I liked the one about honey). Sometimes the poem’s title answers a question the reader may have, or it states the thing the author won’t say in the poem.
Bloom & Grow is a collection of poems that I sincerely enjoyed reading. The poems in this book gave me a lot to think about, pondering the changing times just as the author does, while also reflecting on those once in my life who now exist only in my memories or their possessions I have in my home. The poems are written so well, drawing me in and taking me back to the past or on the streets of the United Kingdom. The poems in this book offer quality insights about our connection with people as well as attachments to things we leave behind. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading free verse poetry.
Five stars
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book as part of my digital subscription to Alien Buddha Press.
