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Pegasus at the Plow: A Poetry Collection
Patrick Walker

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Grady Harp, March 25, 2008

Gut Responses Against the Grain of Tradition

Patrick Walker is an Individualist, a man so comfortable in his skin and his world of observation and creation that he seems to have little need for not only the contemporary mechanics that could make his life of writing simpler, but for the recognition and applause most poets hope to find. The product of an Irish Catholic upbringing, he has managed to walk his own path apparently unconcerned about the grit of 'employment', but instead finds his life of support from writing and editing scholastic materials while immersing himself in his favored study of the works of 17th century French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal and 20th century economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek. And how does this information aid in reading the poetry Walker has composed during the past twenty five years? The reader must turn to the at times enigmatic poems contained in this slim but pungent volume to appreciate the result.

Walker's way with words is at times gritty and acerbic, at times philosophical and still at other times naughty and sensual and even elegant. It is difficult to come away from reading 'The Unholy War (For Michael Olscheske, 1956 - 1989) without a completely fresh view of friendship and kinship: it is a song fit for an Irish wake, both in content and in form. Walker tinkers with Haiku (successfully), plays with cadence and rhyme at will, takes on tongue in cheek topics as in 'Litany for a Common Whore', writes some poems in French and others on a theme and variation after Baudelaire, and utters the tenderest of small songs as in 'Tristitia Post Coitum' or 'Belladonna'.

For this reader Patrick Walker is a minstrel, a man who wanders his world breathing in life and breathing out these beautifully constructed poems. This is one of the more refreshingly different collections of poems to be published in a while and the moods these poems elicit are touchingly made visual with the art of Virginia Cody subtly offering breathing space.

Grady Harp

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