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Jan 29, 2024 By Jimi Arundell

Inviting The Light is the latest offering from Welsh poet and playwright Patrick Jones, written in response to the death of his parents. Presented in the style of a punk pamphlet or DIY fanzine and accompanied by a series of spoken word recordings, put to music and soundscapes found online, it’s a powerful collection of seventeen poems offering a personal insight into his grief and subsequent healing. It’s not the first time he’s recorded his work, with Patrick previously being heard on his album Commemoration And Amnesia and the politically charged record Renegade Psalms made in collaboration with punk legend John Robb of The Membranes. And more recently, he provided the lyrics for James Dean Bradfield, singer and guitarist of his brother Nicky Wire’s band Manic Street Preachers, on his solo album Even In Exile.

The death of a loved one is a terrible experience. It confronts us with feelings of survivor guilt and the anguish of loss. And what greater cause of existential dread than the loss of both parents? It presents us with the sobering realization that your greatest guardians are gone and the stark realization that we are most likely next.

Unsurprisingly, there is a deep vein of anxiety threaded through this collection, and Patrick directly addresses the death of his father Allen in “You (For My Father)” and his mother Irene “Marcescence in Spring (To My Mother)”. Both poems include tender anecdotes revealing just how close and dependent he was, with a tactile quality as his father readied him for all eventualities with his penknife “sharpened // ready”, whilst his mother provided a sense of comfort and safety which he still is not ready to let go of.

Such terrible feelings are further expanded in “Anxiety Fog”, “Waving. Not Drowning.” and “The Stillness We Seek” where he expertly articulates the gut-wrenching feelings of loss and the fragile mind’s attempt to reconcile with the enormity of our assured fate. “Breathe Against The Hurricanes” almost reads like an NHS leaflet, offering both prosaic and aesthetic guidance on how to deal with the most terrible moments of despair.

But as bleak as the certainty of death is, Patrick also offers us hope. The first poem, “That Scar Is Beautiful,” is a stoic response to angst and tragedy, searching for the sparkle revealed in the cracks of your life. This reminds us of the Japanese practice of kintsugi, repairing crockery with veins of powdered gold, making something beautiful from the broken. “The Swim” also suggests that we are somehow attuned to surviving the worst.

Patrick looks towards the regenerative power of nature as a means of healing. “This Immortal Soul” challenges us to acknowledge our physical elements that combine to become something greater. He implores us to unite with those who would see us grow and avoid the “others” who “chop and chop” in “Gardens” and draws our attention to the beauty and potential of nature in “lovesung (A Meditation)”. He seemingly references the online culture wars which offer nothing but the dead end of violence, directing us towards “A bud not a gun”.

Hope, Patrick suggests, lies in this combination of stoicism and the innate potential for growth within us all. That relief can only come after fully acknowledging the worst, but this is the way of things and not necessarily an absolute ending. His parents passed on their love and experience to him, and he “will do the same.” This is perhaps best summed up in “Hold This Dust” where he asks “Resurrection or resignation? // But is submission // the bold admission that you can go on?”

We must each face the absurdity of life with an inevitable death awaiting, and the pain of loss along that journey is unavoidable and can easily be overwhelming. Patrick must be congratulated for bravely exposing his personal experiences of family death to the world. He transforms that pain into a beautiful form of secular salvation we can all share. By painting such vivid pictures with words in Inviting The Light, he not only pays a wonderful tribute to the parents he so clearly loved, but also passes on their kind legacy to the world.

(www.patrick-jones.info/) (patrickjones3.bandcamp.com/)

Author rating: 8/10