Customer Reviews

4 reviews

• Mhairi Lynch

  If you are looking to read short and sweet poetry, expect to find that in many phrases amongst Hollingworth's pages. However the intellectual density of his international outlook and experience befits his almost all encapsulating mind, A caring, sharing poet for our troubled times.

• Dano Cammarota

  Paul Hollingworth’s first poetry volume consists of thirty-three works which he admits (in the introduction) “spans the years”. These entries are fast-paced, immediate, and unwind around a variety of themes, all personal in nature. They include rap verses, locale poems, and mythical references. The last entry “Roman Ruins” (“Exitus acta probat”) exposes the eeriness of COVID-19, the Latin subtitle channeling Ovid’s Heroides II, and suggesting that the real end (not the aim) pre-exists in the means. These are contemporary verses that warrant further exploration.

• Michael Nottage

  Exits and Entrances represents a sensitive, reflective and reflexive collection of poetry derived from personal experiences and observations which I have very much enjoyed.
  The poetry is concise and succinct, to be savoured for it’s every word. Reminiscent of Philip Larkin in style, the narrative seems to cover the stars and scars of Paul Hollingworth’s life. The result has a fatalistic flavour to it although the character of the message is one of hope and rejuvenation.
  The stars described by intimate poems such as Lily of the Incas and Hollingworthite are balanced with those of the scars from the financial world such as The iron rice bowl (which I found magistral and would be familiar to anybody who has worked in the labyrinth of the corporate world), and Taj Mahal and Slurve (which concisely encapsulate the cloacas of the investment business - a warning to both the institutional and retail investor). Deep Fake echoes C P Snow’s (The Two Cultures) in a plea for cultural considerations in scientific thinking (and vice versa), and this is developed further with Dream of Lyotard while the theme culminates in the last poem, Roman Ruins on the literally life and death epistemological battles fought out during the Covid crisis.
  The book is a very good read, holds the reader’s attention and provokes a much needed reflection of this modern polarised world. I thoroughly recommend this excellent book of poetry which should have a wide audience as Paul Hollingworth has something to tell us all. As the title of the book suggests - for every exit there is an entrance, or as the cliché puts it, for every door that closes, another one of opportunity opens.
  
  
  
  

• touched me intellectually and emotionally

  Paul Hollingworth’s poetry collection entitled Exits and Entrances has touched me intellectually and emotionally.

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