Book Review

Poems from the Depths of a Gay Heart by Andy Lindley 

This is the first published work of Australian writer Andy Lindley and is a collection of prose pieces written over 20 years dealing with finding, losing and coming to terms with the search for love.

Finding love can be difficult, maintaining a loving relationship even more difficult and perhaps the most challenging is to write about love.  It is easy to fall into the trap of sentimentalising both the joy and pain of love.  A trap which Andy avoids by keeping his writing in prose form rather than trying to fit his pieces into the metrical structure of poetry.  

Another challenge with writing about love is to balance the uniqueness and universality of our experiences of love.

There is the uniqueness of how each of us express our love, that “thing” our partner knows how to do, that brings a smile to our lips or turns us on.  Yet, there is also a universality to love so we understand the pain, the “stomach twisting and lung sighing on thoughts of you” that lingers when love ends, (in Pain Still Lingers)

Throughout the book, Andy touches on some of the anxieties and questions of love.  For example, in Adult?  he asks

            Am I adult enough

            Not to take it out on you?”

So often our partners become the punching bags for our insecurities and anxieties as we take out our fears on them, rather than being adult enough to deal with our own issues.

The final stanza of the piece “Life is too short” is

“Slow down, take the time

            Don’t lose what you may later regret

            Expression is the key

            Life is too short”

Andy has done this.  He has given expression to his search for and experiences in the journey of coming to terms with love.

Publishing your work can take as much courage as remaining open to the search and possibility of love, so Andy is to be commended in publishing his first work and reminding us all of the ebbs and flows of love.

Hopefully, his first foray into publishing will be followed by a second.

‘Poems from Depths of a Gay Heart’ by Andy Lindley is available locally at Crow Books in Victoria Park, New Edition in Fremantle and Oxford Street Books in Leederville. 

David Kernohan

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