Any book with a chapter called ‘Decadent Romanticism’ is bound to grab our interest so it’s little surprise that Grayson, the collected works of Belvoir Castle’s Poet in Residence, Tim Grayson has stayed at the top of my desks’ to do pile since arriving by post. It’s a good place for it to live as over the last few weeks its contents have provided me with some mighty fine literary procrastination.
Poetry, it is proving, is a great way to divide your day and take a break from the constant video calls that now make up our working week.
In a world where travel is suspended in time, poetry can transport the mind to other realms, moments, moods and mindsets. The works within Grayson not only offer immediate escapism but the tableaus presented by poems such as shadowy Black Masses of the Restoration of Babylon and satisfying storytelling of The Infamous Nomadica, linger.
Clearly influenced by classic poets such as Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Browning but without pomp or pretention, Grayson remains a Leicester lad through and through. You’ll find less worldly works such as Leicester’s Dream , a marker in the timeline of Leicester’s football success and the satirical The Martyred Member, reflective of wanton Saturday nights around the city’s clock tower.
With themes of mythology, madness, decadence, grief, honour and revolution, Grayson offers an enjoyable escape from our everyday; we’d recommend taking time to hide in its pages awhile.
