Mary Ashak

Kaleidoscope Mary Ashak

This anthology of poems and short stories basks in a kaleidoscope of images from life as it moves easily from the charm of the eccentric school teacher on his bicycle in "Papa Brown", to enchanting and melancholic ruminations on the beauty of Scotland's "Rowerdennan" through to recollections of the deep shelters during World War II. It traverses cultures and geographies as it travels through Egypt with images of feluccas on the Nile, moving on to Mount Sinai and the monastery of St Catherine. It makes enormous leaps from the beauty of nature to the tragedy of the lost generation of the Aberfan disaster in Wales in the nineteen sixties to everyday goings on in the United Kingdom, its royal family and the electoral antics of its politicians at a general election. There is also a sense of compassion in poems that asks us to empathise with the child and then the man eking out a living from the rubbish tips in the developing world. The mood of parts of the work is light hearted and comical; elsewhere it deals with the darker side of life. The horror of the death camps during the Second World War in "Persecution" laments humanity's failure to overcome hatred. However, the work always remains upbeat and optimistic. All the poems and stories have a basis in real events, real places and real people as seen through the eyes of one woman. The short stories in particular give an insight into the detail of a private life as lived through the newsworthy events of the time, a social history, accurately and sensitively written, with a keen respect for detail. Often, however, she simply shares her experiences and the reader feels honoured to be invited into a private life.