Overview

Hey Bert is a clarion call to open our eyes to the extent of poetry's capacity with the aim to find new ways of looking at our own lives. Poems that speak intensely of the everyday, of nostalgia, friendship and love, the body, the sacred, all seen through Pastore's unique, eccentric filter of spirit animals, pop-culture, dreams and astrology. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru

Full Product Details

9781912109340

Table of Contents

Reviews

In the spirit of John Giorno, Anne Waldman, and Julia Heyward, Pastore’s work draws from performance art, confessional poetry, mantra, and folklore to create a voice both fiercely contemporary and somehow out of time. His inspiration for this collection derived from his trips to Carlisle, where his love for poetry ignited twelve years ago. ‘I think my poems connect with people, because they speak of things that we all experience and aren’t intimidating to people who don’t generally read poetry. I think my collection could be a bridge for people who grew up on Instagram poetry.’ -- Publisher: Parthian Books When musicians release their second albums, they’re always held up and compared to the debuts that precede them. Debut albums are typically considered to be high peaks of excellence that are often a struggle to follow; they manifest all the artistic intentions, daydreams and years of planning that lead up to that first time in the studio. Debuts are typically full to the brim of ideas and reflect how an artist wants to be heard. Literature is no different. Hey Bert, the debut collection of poetry from Cardiff-based Roberto Pastore, will be a hard act to follow. Hey Bert is a bold book in every sense. Its striking coloured cover of a bright and childlike toucan, with its beak stretching across the title, sets the scene for some similarly bright, unapologetic and confident poetry. It’s not always explicit what Pastore’s work means, but it’s not performing lip service to say that the joy comes from reading the work of a man who clearly means what he writes, even if we can’t easily grasp that meaning. ‘Dark Flow’, a highlight of the collection, is a great example of this. There is humour in it, very clear longing, great imagery (‘…I feel the world tugging on me from all directions I watch / dark flow tugging at the branches of a tree like a mama / tugging a jumper over her daughter’s head’) and then towards the end comes the question we’re all thinking, ‘what even is dark flow?’ Split into three sections, ‘Throat’, ‘Belly’ and ‘Heart’, the collection does evolve in different ways. Though never explicit in why the sections are named as they are, Pastore’s past involvement in the spoken-word scene might imply that the poems in ‘Throat’ are those that would best suit an oral performance. They are typically briefer, with more space to breathe between the lines on the page, and with repetition of phrases that has the impact of slowing down the reader to think about what is meant. In ‘A Prefix’, most of the lines repeat partial phrases from the line before. This is dizzying and makes the reader slow down and consider what Pastore is saying. It is clearly immensely considered and for an effect that might be more impactful if read aloud. Reading this collection in full one feels as though things are being pulled in and out of focus; meaning is there and then it’s not. Similarly, imagery feels abstract and then suddenly quite literal. ‘Lionheart’, an abstract ode to someone loved (‘Watering your plants / mourning roadkill’), is followed by the very literal ‘Show Homes’ – ‘My mum and dad loved show homes. Every Sunday we’d get in the car and go’. While there is humour, and some brilliant glints of images, in Pastore’s more opaque work, his more direct pieces really have the ability to hold an emotive strength. ‘You were the only one I would’ve stayed behind for when I knew it was time to go’ is one of the later poems (not accidentally ordered in the section entitled ‘Heart’) and it’s a real gem. The specificity of the lines gives a truth to it that feels as though it’s very clearly about someone specific, but it’s entirely relatable. When Pastore writes about ‘the hormonal Jane-fixated Ventolin year’, we may not grasp exactly who Jane was, but her role is relatable. As the letter to an old friend goes on, there are times, places and actions that are clearly uniquely Pastore’s, but when he writes, ‘Anyway is that how it really happened? / It’s been years and I’ve begun to doubt my own memories’, it could be a poem written by any of us. Hey Bert is a slim collection, but full of ideas and imagery that linger well after the pages have been closed. It’s a powerful introduction to the world for Pastore and one hopes that this debut is only the start of great things for him. It will be a tough act to follow, but there should be plenty of readers eager for more after this. -- Liam Nolan @ www.gwales.com

Author Information

Roberto studied in Carlisle, Cumbria, where he participated in the renowned Speakeasy spoken word scene. A chapbook of his poetry, The Dumb Supper, was released by Freerange Poetry, in 2008. Roberto lives in Cardiff, where he works as a school crossing guard to support his love for writing. -- Publisher: Parthian Books

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