This review is in 'DIAL 174' poetry magazine, issue 41 easter 2000
It is always a challenge to meet an author whose work is not previously known to you, and demands an open
mind and heart on the part of the reader. 'A King Rose to Build a Palace' makes particular demands,
as here we have before us not only texts but paintings, all of which stem from the same creative impulse.
Christopher English is displaying both the visual and aural facets of his imagination, and we have to
immerse ourselves more fully in his work if we are to begin to appreciate it. There is a complex and
unusual talent at work here, but before getting more specific about the result, there are one or two
comments to get out of the way. Fortunately for me, I already had a postcard reproduction of one of
the pictures in the book..... and was able to compare it with the representation on page.......
Unfortunately, in the book the reproduction gives no true idea of the vibrancy and depth of colour,
nor the sharpness of detail of the images. From this I can only surmise that the colour reproduction
of the rest of the book suffers in the same way, so this must be borne in mind when studying the pictures.
One can hardly cavil at Mr English for this defect, when he has published himself, and is prepared to
give away his work rather than no-one see it........Never the less, what we have here is unique -
a number of artists/poet collaborations have resulted in interesting books recently, but this is the first
I have seen where one artist is responsible for both image and text. The result can be, at its best,
a roller-coaster ride into surreal streams of consciousness, where certain images remain in the
reader's mind. The paintings are lively. full of symbolic reference, with a rawness suggestive of aboriginal
and other primitive art; the text arising from these extraordinary images are themselves post modern
explorations of memory,realities, weird juxtapositions. The books works best where picture and text
face each other on a double page,....... I hope others will apply for a copy of this book,
and allow themselves a journey into uncharted territory. I think they will be pleasantly surprised!
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