Title: Quatrains
Author: Vivian Anglin
Publisher: Athena Press, London
Reviewer: Paul H. Williams

On the back of the book there is a small picture of the Jamaica-born author. His ears are pointed, and his piercing eyes are looking straight at you, and perhaps at the 11 years that he spent with a woman named Anna.

The 320 quatrains in this 127-page book were written within a month shortly after they broke up. In the author's note, Anglin said, "Every single quatrain in this book is not wholly about her, but every single quatrain is because of her."

And it must have been one month of emotional and psychological turmoil and confusion, judging from the themes of the quatrains, some of them recurring. "In these three hundred and twenty quatrains, practically the whole gamut of life is to be found, from love and loss to life and death and all that's in-between," another note, on the back cover, sums up the cocktail of bittersweet thoughts that filled his head, about 11 years ago, when the verses were written.

From them it is gathered that Anglin is a free spirit, who loves to be himself, and who loves to be with women, preferring prostitutes, but doesn't want to be controlled and tamed. He found himself a woman who put up with his erratic behaviour, but for reasons which he termed "irrelevant" Anna left. He, who is a poet from he was 15, put down his feelings on paper, because he's in love with writing, in love with words.

Crying out for help

From the words in Quatrains, I get the feeling that he was crying out for help, tormented by Anna's departure. "Four o'clock in the morning/And you're not here, you're not here/And I'm tossing and turning and tossing and turning/'cause you're not here, 'cause you're not here," he pines away in 'Not Here', as he does in a few of the quatrains.

In some, he appears to be regretful. "The cruel and wounding things I used to say/Never giving credit when credit was due/It still pains me to this day/When I think how horrid I was to you," he confesses in 'Confession'. And asks for pardon in 'Je Vous Demande': "Forgive me, Anna, for having treated you so/The way I did at times, so cruelly/But all the time you were not to know/How I punished myself mercilessly."

Blasé

Yet, in others he seems blasé and unrepentant about how he treated her. In 'Shutout', he declares: "Didn't even wanna phone call/Didn't even wanna know/Didn't care if I never saw you at all/Didn't care and told you so." He warns in 'Rage', "A caged lion will roar/And, should you enter his cage/He's likely to do much more/For a lion in bondage is a lion enraged."

This echoes what he says in the author's note. "Why the relationship ended is irrelevant, for the only thing that really matters to me is what she did - especially considering that from the moment she met me she basically entered a den with a tormented lion."

But for readers to better understand the torment that he was in, it would have been good to say why Anna had left. Thus, was his torment justified? Is Anna to be blamed? Yet, he was tormented before he met Anna. A "tormented lion" he is, and she put up with him. Then she left him, perhaps intensifying his restlessness. Were the quatrains, therefore, a catharsis, a purge, a balm to soothe his 'enraged' mind, to get Anna out of it?

For, there also seems to be an abundance of longing for and sensual reminiscence of what he and Anna used to do together. The words used to convey such are undiluted, bawdy; frank, down-to-earth expressions of carnality they are. Some readers will find them shocking, some erotic; others will recommend counselling (tongue in cheek). But, he said on page 40 that he did not love her. "You knew I was never in love with you/For you know I had no belief in sentimental love/But what I had shone through/'twas in recognition of my virtue, my dove."

Multidimensional

In Quatrains you hear the many voices of Vivian Anglin; you get an idea of who is he. However, you will not get it spot on. For, his is a persona as multidimensional and complicated as they can get. And you don't want to take him on. Remember, he's a tormented lion. And Quatrains is his den. Go in, read and leave without even a whimper.