For the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed seeing Donnie’s work popping up in all my favourite places – Thunder Sandwich, Zygote in My Coffee, Remark, Open Wide etc, and I’ve also had the pleasure of showcasing a number of his poems (seven of which are included in ‘Passing for Blue) on my own site. Indeed, the beautiful, ‘Shadows of Ray,’ a tribute to Ray Charles, Donnie sent me within hours of the great man dying, so I was able to feature it as a memorial on the site that same day.

Most of the poems in this collection are inspired or/and evocative of blues music and musicians. Being a blues guitarist of great renown himself, Donnie picks up the rhythm, atmosphere and nuances of the music, the musicians and the venues, to great effect. As Donnie says himself on the back of the book:

“He loves writing poetry for the same reason he loves playing the guitar – a way to communicate how he feels, at a given time, on a given day.”

Blues and jazz legends play on in Donnie’s poetry and live forever – Parker, Mingus, Monk, Chet Baker, Ray Charles and, in the wonderful, ‘Of Time, and Big Rivers,’ Johnny Cash:

“…standing, like an obsidian statue,
on the banks of the big river,

black guitar in hand,
stroking that
same old repeating
riff, quietly singing…

‘i hear the train
a coming’, it’s
rollin’ round
the bend… ‘

& he has a mysterious,
angelic smile
on his beautiful,
time-torn face –

as if, he knows
something i don’t.”

The collection is peppered liberally with strong, involving poems about the disaffected, rejected, downtrodden; drifters, Vietnam vets, junkies, gypsies... Lost souls resurrected.

‘Where Do They All Come From,’ is a chillingly sad fly on the wall take on the hours in Mark Chapman’s life before he murdered John Lennon. The poem really gets into Chapman’s head, not judging, just acting like a camera into his thoughts:

“A warning message to false prophets,
A Technicolor caution sign
to purveyors of empty noise,
& meaningless bullshit.”

Another favourite is ‘The Day the Music Died’ – a bluesman’s swipe at the soulless pretence of modern composers, especially when he reaches the final straw:

“..but my symphony tickets
went on ebay, the night
a well-dressed piano soloist
walked on stage & executed
a piece entitled 4’ 33” …

as the audience
watched & waited,
this guy sat silently
at the keyboard
for 4 minutes & 33 seconds,
stood up, bowed & departed

creating the first ever
___musical vacuum
in the local concert hall…

if a concert pianist is seated
at a Steinway –
alone in the middle of a forest
& a mammoth oak tree
crashes down
on his hollow crown___

does it make a sound?

& if it does,
could you,
would you – have the balls
to call it music?

I’m also a real sucker for poems, stories and novels that include lines from my favourite songs. Cox is a master at this, interweaving the wonderful lyrics of Rodgers & Hart, Arlen & Mercer and the Man in Black himself through his own words, like the bits of songs you always have to stop to listen to, no matter how great the conversation you're having is.

As befits such a timeous and important debut, the collection is beautifully produced. Rank Stranger Press have really gone to town and the book itself makes a considerable visual impact.

My only complaint, and really, I’m only being churlish, is that lots of my favourite D.B. poems weren’t in there: ‘Markers,’ ‘Brothers,’ the incredibly powerful ‘Heshu,’ but that’s hardly a criticism. Just a plea to Rank Stranger to get Donnie’s next book out soon. An index page also would have been useful, but hopefully one can be included in the reprint which, I am no doubt, will need to be soon if ‘Passing for Blue’ sells like it deserves to.

Perhaps the thing that really makes Donnie’s poetry stand out for me is, he doesn’t sit around looking for things to write about, contemplating his navel ad nauseaum. He has more in common with a figure like Dylan, responding to events as they happen, engaging with life, contemplating its richness and dismay with equal humanity.

As the first poem, ‘Repetition of a Song’ begins:

“take me
to a place
where midnight
accumulates”

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Laura Hird is the Orange and Whitbread nominated author of the collection, ‘Nail and Other Stories’ and novel, ‘Born Free.’ Her short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies internationally. Her new collection of short stories is due to be published by Canongate Books in May 2005. She runs and edits her own loosely arts-related website on which she seeks out and publishes new poetry, short stories, reviews, interviews etc. She was born and lives in Edinburgh.

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