The only item not detailed in the specification at the back of this limited edition is exactly what make of mauve cotton was used to bind the pages into their cover. Otherwise, we know we are holding papers that were mouldmade near Wookey Hole in handmade card from Montreal. The booklet is designed and printed in handset Univers Light with Univers Medium in Stonehouse for the Gruffyground Press. And those are some of the reasons why you only get three poems for your twelve pounds. It is best if you appreciate that what you are buying is not simply the poems but the choicest method of their presentation.But, thankfully, the poems do justify the occasion. It would be awful if such a job were ruined by typographical errors or simply bad poems but in the title poem especially, Jeff Turner turns in one of his finest, well-crafted meditative performances in which,
I'd say I don't believe in ghosts
But perhaps that's saying I've no belief
In pain or warmth.
Those of us who know a few Turner poems are accustomed to the keenly observed small details of quiet moments and the equanimity of the conclusions taken from them. Ghosts is one of those rare poems that I come across that I immediately look back on and wish I'd written it myself (even if it's highly unlikely that I could have).
The other two poems, Benches and November, reflect on more violent scenes before ending equally quietly and both are fine poems. But what you are buying from Gruffyground here is a collaboration between poet and press, a symbiotic relationship through which each has enhanced the contribution of the other in a rare and select artefact.
