The first collection of poems by Felicity Teague, From Pittville to Paradise features poems published in online journals from July 2021 and is beautifully illustrated by Cotswolds-based artist Gemma Hastilow. The pictures are suitable for colouring in, if you like! An insightful introduction is provided by Michael R. Burch, Editor of The HyperTexts . In my opinion, Felicity Teague ranks with a few rare poets who were able to communicate warmth, tenderness, and humor in poems about animals: Edward Lear, Dr. Seuss, ...
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The first collection of poems by Felicity Teague, From Pittville to Paradise features poems published in online journals from July 2021 and is beautifully illustrated by Cotswolds-based artist Gemma Hastilow. The pictures are suitable for colouring in, if you like! An insightful introduction is provided by Michael R. Burch, Editor of The HyperTexts . In my opinion, Felicity Teague ranks with a few rare poets who were able to communicate warmth, tenderness, and humor in poems about animals: Edward Lear, Dr. Seuss, William Blake, Robert Burns, some of the Mother Goose poets. Yes, she really is that good. Michael R. Burch, Editor, The HyperTexts Felicity's love of animals and nature comes through in these poems as vibrantly as the mating display of the great crested grebes of Pittville and the flight of the Seychelles tropicbird, both of which are included in this collection. Her command of structure, meter, and rhyme is as solid as the standing stone known as the Old Man of Gugh, which inspires one of her brilliant sonnets. What delights me most, however, is her imaginative use of metaphor, personification, imagery, onomatopoeia, musicality, playfulness, and subtle humour. Fliss's poems are a joy to read. Martin Elster, author of Celestial Euphony If you fancy a bit of a dance; if you thrill quietly to find poetry anchored in song; then you may well enjoy this charming book. Felicity Teague has an ear for song and bestows it here on bird and beast and rock with equal skill and affection, producing a wonderful little primer of verse forms from ode to pantoum for anyone looking to explore the joys of rhyme and meter, from a small child to a grandparent. Fliss divides her book into three sections, expanding outward from the lives found around Cheltenham's Pittville Lake - swans, grebes, coots, rats - to the surrounding counties, from Stonehenge to the Scilly Isles, and off to the realm of the fantastic with meditations on Mussorgsky and garden gnomes. The book sings; it is made to please. Like all great light verse, it provokes thought: the brain reflects as the ear luxuriates. This is verse to linger in the mind and heart. John Claiborne Isbell, author of Allegro
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