Tom Kelly
In this, Kelly's fourth collection and third for Red Squirrel, he displays the qualities much admired in his previous work, his concern with and sense of loss in his north-east community. This is shown in a number of poems, perhaps more especially in Sunday in Winter where a man searches for his past life and wonders if it was a dream, "some stranger's life rifled/ allowed a dream to sneak in,/ filch its corrupt way into this unbearable aching."
He walks along the Tyne and charts the changes, the loss of heavy industry and its impact in poem upon poem: "A man with a dog/ held on the horizon,/ his memories a coin, precious to the touch."
In Somewhere in Heaven, Tom Kelly moves from individual Catholic childhood experiences out into the wider social sphere, before heading back to the homeland of the heart: the collection is starker than its predecessors, capturing a world we need to hear and see.
About Tom Kelly | Two poems | Review
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Tom's work, produced by the Customs House, includes his most recent, critically acclaimed, play, Nothing like the Wooden Horse (text published by Red Squirrel); Baby Love; Family Ties; Five By One; I Left My Heart In Roker Park (staged three times); Secrets; Love in NE32; Ride A White Swan (staged twice); Behind the Wall; Autumn Days; and the musicals Dan Dare with music by John Miles and Tom & Catherine (with Ray Spencer) music once again by John Miles, which was staged twice and sold-out on both occasions.
He has written two community plays, Tyne Songs (with Carol Cooke) for South Tyneside MBC and The Black Hill for Blaydon Festival. In addition he wrote The Blaydon Bricklayer for the Workers' Educational Association and has been commissioned to write a new play to celebrate their centenary in October.
His next production is the musical The Machine Gunners, followed by Talking Tom, a collection of his monologues appearing at the Customs House in March before a short regional tour. Tom will be appearing in the production reading some of his highly praised poetry.
In May, choral group Encore will perform concert versions of Tom & Catherine and Dan Dare.
Over the past year he has directed with Gary Wilkinson two film documentaries Little Ireland and Jarrow Voices.
Somewhere in Heaven is Tom Kelly's new poetry collection from Red Squirrel Press. It follows his earlier collections, Dreamers in a Cold Climate and Love-Lines.
No French Film
His wife's carrier bags are scales of justice.
It's Wednesday morning and she moves to him.
There's no-one painting the scene,
climbing ivy, window boxes screaming colour,
graffiti banished.
He feels, for a moment, he's in a film,
something French he's fallen asleep in front of,
a crowd with cameras
behind him, filming,
his wife's slowly walking toward him,
he feels so tired and sad and knows
her pain, what she's endured because of his silence;
it's as if he's woken in front of the television,
he struggles to put it off,
extinguish this other life
go to bed
but what he sees is his wife as she struggles home to him.
Sunday In Winter
Rain drills his face,
beer's worn off.
Juke-box yawns light in the empty bar,
this is the worst of times:
afternoon stupors, dank bedrooms.
He watches from the upstairs window,
one slipper shoved on, the other in his hand, like a cosh,
he berates the wall,
head staggering with the shock
of the mess he's living in.
Things were better: children looked up to him,
his wife waited for his return.
Was that him or some stranger's life rifled,
allowed a dream to sneak in,
filch its corrupt way into this unbearable aching.
"The first sequence of poems gave me that claustrophobic, breathless feeling of being trapped in church during procedures. Believers would I think be at one with them, they do evoke the atmosphere. I like it when the outreach collection box of the Kelly's is returned with a button in it!
"Great snapshots of wonderful but poor past lives in the north-east, lost except for memories. Shipyards closed, the Fever Hospital, the night shift...quot;
Geoff Stevens, Purple Patch 126, June 2010
"Kelly's fourth collection continues the theme of his last collection, Love-Lines - the acute sense of loss in his north-east England. He walks along the Tyne lamenting the loss of heavy industry and its impact on the community. The poem 'Sunday in Winter' perhaps sums up Kelly's concern - a man, searching for his past life, now lost, wonders whether it was a dream: 'some stranger's life rifled / allowed a dream to sneak in, / filch its corrupt way into this unbearable aching'. In this wonderfully observed collection, Kelly captures a world we need to hear and see."
The Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Spring 2010