REVIEWS
THE CENTURY COLLECTION
The poet earns the nickname “Radical” by refusing to compromise in his rhetoric, while observing suffering through the eyes of a multitude of victims and persecutors. Nearly all these poems are based on broad categories; life, love tragedy, poverty, praise and so on. The poet prefers to write about specific actual events, including Hiroshima’s destruction by the “Enola Gay” and the Kings Cross Tube tragedy, which is commemorated in a poem Prince Charles is said to have liked.
The poet doesn’t shy away from indicting a host of villains (by name) with his pen, or commemorating good people who met early demises. The structures feature end-rhymes and no punctual termination. The explanatory notes that accompany so many of the poems provide grounding content for each, notably improving comprehension and enjoyment.
Some of the least affected pieces are less about mass tragedies or widespread societal problems than they are about the despair of individuals. No one has ever erected a stature to those unfortunate enough to have survived failed eye surgery, but Radical Rooney puts the reader squarely inside the head of someone in that situation in “Dark for Me”;
“When at noon the sun lit my life with fear, it was still dark,
And all that I could see, were dark explosions of mystery”
Walt Whitman’s ebullient feeling of nostalgia in “Once I passed through a Populous City” is turned inside out in “The Runaway”:
“As he stalked along the street, I saw his frightened face
When he entered slow this city, devoid of love or pity”
Though some poems ring of wonder or urge faith in God, outrage is most prevalent, and Rooney’s outrage has an unfortunate tendency to steamroll the artistic balance. Some members of the IRA, animal testers at cosmetic companies, war loving Generals and others the poet opposes aren’t outlined in complex portraits of positive qualities vying with flaws. Instead their unadulterated villainy is reinforced to the maximum, creating cartoonish figures who relish destruction.
His imaginative turns of phrase are arranged carefully enough, but he truly stands out for a limitless concern for all sorts of downtrodden classes and luckless bystanders. Rooney sees pain as unavoidable, writing ;
“We must all suffer, for without pain there can’t be, any compassion”
as one of his Haiku. Cheers to this voice for the voiceless!
By Todd Mercer.
The poet doesn’t shy away from indicting a host of villains (by name) with his pen, or commemorating good people who met early demises. The structures feature end-rhymes and no punctual termination. The explanatory notes that accompany so many of the poems provide grounding content for each, notably improving comprehension and enjoyment.
Some of the least affected pieces are less about mass tragedies or widespread societal problems than they are about the despair of individuals. No one has ever erected a stature to those unfortunate enough to have survived failed eye surgery, but Radical Rooney puts the reader squarely inside the head of someone in that situation in “Dark for Me”;
“When at noon the sun lit my life with fear, it was still dark,
And all that I could see, were dark explosions of mystery”
Walt Whitman’s ebullient feeling of nostalgia in “Once I passed through a Populous City” is turned inside out in “The Runaway”:
“As he stalked along the street, I saw his frightened face
When he entered slow this city, devoid of love or pity”
Though some poems ring of wonder or urge faith in God, outrage is most prevalent, and Rooney’s outrage has an unfortunate tendency to steamroll the artistic balance. Some members of the IRA, animal testers at cosmetic companies, war loving Generals and others the poet opposes aren’t outlined in complex portraits of positive qualities vying with flaws. Instead their unadulterated villainy is reinforced to the maximum, creating cartoonish figures who relish destruction.
His imaginative turns of phrase are arranged carefully enough, but he truly stands out for a limitless concern for all sorts of downtrodden classes and luckless bystanders. Rooney sees pain as unavoidable, writing ;
“We must all suffer, for without pain there can’t be, any compassion”
as one of his Haiku. Cheers to this voice for the voiceless!
By Todd Mercer.
THE KIRKUS REVIEW
Compiling daily journal entries for an entire year, Radical Rooney, ( The Century Collection, 2008 ) portrays life in the rougher portions of St.Leonards-on-Sea, England.
Once an elegant town in the south of England, St. Leonards-on-Sea is now scarred by crime, homelessness and drug abuse. As a volunteer with local charities and general friend to the homeless, the author develops a special relationship with the street people who inhabit the town.
He chronicles the difficult lives these people live, along with notes on his own troubled life, creating a window into the struggles of individuals who might be alive if it weren’t for soup kitchens and government sponsored methadone.
The stories of such people prove shocking albeit repetitive, as drug addicts continually seek drugs as the homeless continually seek shelter. A written record for every single day of the year gives the book a measure of completeness but also a hint of redundancy.
Among all the heroin addicts and petty thieves, many aren’t particularly distinguishable; in fact the author himself emerges as the most engaging character: he’s been with a hundred or more, beautiful women around the world and married two of them, and is on record as being the first person to get married in a hot-air balloon.
Much of his time in the book is spent going to hospital for various ailments, and trying to get back a security deposit on his apartment, but he’s every bit as edgy as the people from the street. His adventures include experimenting with crack, speaking in tongues, and speeding around in his Jaguar in an impromptu street race.
As expected from a year’s worth of daily accounts there are mundane stretches; yet readers unbothered by rough prose will find plenty of Southern England street-life episodes worth reading about.
Once an elegant town in the south of England, St. Leonards-on-Sea is now scarred by crime, homelessness and drug abuse. As a volunteer with local charities and general friend to the homeless, the author develops a special relationship with the street people who inhabit the town.
He chronicles the difficult lives these people live, along with notes on his own troubled life, creating a window into the struggles of individuals who might be alive if it weren’t for soup kitchens and government sponsored methadone.
The stories of such people prove shocking albeit repetitive, as drug addicts continually seek drugs as the homeless continually seek shelter. A written record for every single day of the year gives the book a measure of completeness but also a hint of redundancy.
Among all the heroin addicts and petty thieves, many aren’t particularly distinguishable; in fact the author himself emerges as the most engaging character: he’s been with a hundred or more, beautiful women around the world and married two of them, and is on record as being the first person to get married in a hot-air balloon.
Much of his time in the book is spent going to hospital for various ailments, and trying to get back a security deposit on his apartment, but he’s every bit as edgy as the people from the street. His adventures include experimenting with crack, speaking in tongues, and speeding around in his Jaguar in an impromptu street race.
As expected from a year’s worth of daily accounts there are mundane stretches; yet readers unbothered by rough prose will find plenty of Southern England street-life episodes worth reading about.
THE CENTURY COLLECTION REVIEW 2
It should come as no surprise that Radical Rooney’s life has been anything but conventional. He is not one to blindly accept the opinions and values of others, and this approach has led to a unique spiritual journey. In his new book, The Century Collection: A Composition Of 100 Radical Poems and 100 Radical Haiku (published by AuthorHouse), Rooney traces his winding path through the controversial subjects that have impacted his life in both positive and negative ways.
Compiled from the many thousands of poems Rooney has written over the years, this book presents 10 sets of poems on 10 subjects as well as 100 classical haiku, thus The Century Collection. Delving into the radical truth of Life, Love, Tragedy, Wonder, War, Animals, Poverty, Pain, Death and Praise, Rooney shows us those things that give his life meaning.
Compiled from the many thousands of poems Rooney has written over the years, this book presents 10 sets of poems on 10 subjects as well as 100 classical haiku, thus The Century Collection. Delving into the radical truth of Life, Love, Tragedy, Wonder, War, Animals, Poverty, Pain, Death and Praise, Rooney shows us those things that give his life meaning.
Consider two poems from the subject of Wonder:
Autumn Leaves
As drops of dew to leaves are lent
They sparkle in the autumn scent
As round these trees like voices calling
Leaves blow slow in silence falling
The Rose
Her heart with fragrant beauty shows
The womb her silken hands enclose
But curling fingers edged with gold
Must wither soon as they grow old
And as her petals curl with age
To gently fall like turning page
They will in memory oft’ repeat
To us a scent that lingers sweet
Autumn Leaves
As drops of dew to leaves are lent
They sparkle in the autumn scent
As round these trees like voices calling
Leaves blow slow in silence falling
The Rose
Her heart with fragrant beauty shows
The womb her silken hands enclose
But curling fingers edged with gold
Must wither soon as they grow old
And as her petals curl with age
To gently fall like turning page
They will in memory oft’ repeat
To us a scent that lingers sweet
About the author: Radical Rooney, as the author prefers to be known, especially to the taxman, was born and bred on the Falls Road in Belfast, where he grew up in the 1950s. Rooney feels sustained by his faith and love of God, and he volunteers his time serving the homeless in soup kitchens. In addition to The Century Collection, Rooney is the author of A YEAR ON THE STREETS, published by AuthorHouse. He is in the process of writing two other books: his autobiography and a novel, For the Love of Dog, which he hopes will find a niche among animal lovers. Rooney also intends to write a book about his current expedition from the Arctic to Antarctica.