THE TABLET: You'll Never Walk Alone Book Review (in print)

RACHEL KELLY believes in the power of words.  If, as has famously been suggested, the definition of poetry is “the best words in the best order”, then it is no surprise she believes even more strongly in poetry. Indeed she has long advocated poetry as a vital part of recovery from depression, and currently runs “Healing Words” poetry workshops for charities, at festivals and in prisons. Her latest book takes that definition into larger realms. She asserts, quite rightly, that poetry can heighten or assuage every mood. It does not necessarily need to comfort the distressed: sometimes it can celebrate and whoop with joy, when things, for a change, go just right. In this selection, Kelly, a little arbitrarily, assigns joyous poems to spring and summer, reserving glum-verging-on despair for autumn and winter. She accompanies each selection with a short interpretation of the poem, and adds brief, and very lively, biographies of her chosen poets, studded with vivid details. Emily Brontë, for example, was so thin that her coffin was only 16 inches wide, while R.S. Thomas was described by Robert Runcie as a “tidy, bony man, with a thin face rutted by severity. And the poems are the man.” So it is a surprise to see that Thomas’ poem  “The Bright Field” opens the summer section; although, while scarcely cheery, it does hint at a kind of gloomy optimism. THESE TWO POETS have often been anthologised, but Kelly has chosen some less well-known writers as well, like Ruth Pitter, who described having “taken to Christianity ... driven to it by the pull of C.S. Lewis and the push of misery”, and whose simple, profound poem “For Sleep, or Death” is a perfect prayer. I was particularly taken with Portia Nelson, a multi-talented woman who played Sister Berthe in  The Sound of Music  and whose poem “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” made me laugh aloud in delighted recognition of its truth. It’s a pity Kelly didn’t provide an index. However, from the wisdom of the Desert Fathers to the traditions of the Inuit; from haiku to football anthem; from long-dead Sappho and Kobayashi Issa to the vibrancy of such living poets as Grace Nichols, Suzi Feay and Pelé Cox, she has assembled and discussed 52 remarkable poems and snippets of prose. You may not like them all, but you’d have to be impressed by her eclecticism and sheer enthusiasm.