By: Anne Hay
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The poems in this book can paint a picture or tell a story.
Poetry can open our eyes and can make us think. Poetry is a gentle art of describing feelings of love lost, love found, or in fact, can describe our daily lives in many ways. Poetry is a way of showing how we feel about many issues, past and present. It tells a story.
Reading poetry is relaxing, inspiring and thought-provoking. It leads us through a door into another world.
Anne has had an interesting life. After completing her education in Australia and the UK, she worked for many years for a pharmaceutical company in the US.
She retired to France with her husband and enjoyed life close to the mountains and the vineyards of the Languedoc Roussillon region.
She now calls Australia home and is still close to the mountains and the sea.
I picked up a slim volume of poetry in my local bookstore. I am not what could be described as a regular poetry reader as I generally read novels. For some reason the title ‘The Mists of Time’, gave me a feeling of positive nostalgia. Anyhow, I read a couple of the poems in the bookstore, paid and left. The next day was a Sunday and not having too much to do I settled down with a cup of coffee and started to read. It was an inspiration.
I am not sure what I expected to read, the title suggests historical and nostalgic content, and perhaps a little sad or mournful…but I am not sure I thought about it too deeply. What I got was a revelatory opening of the authoress’s heart with its ups and downs, and an insight into her loves and life. The courses of our lives throw us all sorts of expected and unexpected experiences for us to enjoy or manage to get through. Anne Hay shows us how to capture the joy from some periods in her life. It is very intimate. One can have friends for years and not be as close to the inner feelings of them as spending 30 minutes reading Anne’s very accessible poetry.
My favourite is “A Beautiful World to Share with My Love” which deals with the sadness of death, but the gladness of having loved. Inspirational? Yes. Nostalgic? Yes. Mournful? Definitely not.
Another favourite is “An Ode to a Gentleman” which tells us about her friend 'Tony' and all the wonderful memories she has of him…it makes you wish you had been part of the family and enjoyed the company of this great friend.
I wish I had had the opportunity to read these poems when I was in my twenties instead of my late 60s.
