Caliban's Redemption

By Stefan Isaksson

Caliban's Redemption
David Parry
Mandrake of Oxford
130 pages
ISBN: 186992875X

It’s not an easy thing to write a review for poetry, especially not when I usually only review fiction, non-fiction, and comics; and Caliban’s Redemption is just as difficult to review that I feared it would be. It’s a collection of occult poetry, mixed with short segments dealing with what – I assume – is philosophical discussions mixed with occult parts about magic and homosexuality.

David Parry is a skilled poet, and many of his pieces have beautiful words and even more beautiful ways of using them. Good poetry should be like good whisky; after you’ve read the piece you should be able to just sit back and sink into what you’ve just read, realizing the larger picture and the hidden meanings, in the same way that the real favor of your favourite whisky becomes apparent after a few seconds after drinking it. Now, I’m not an expert drinker, but I know a good whisky when I try one, and I also know for a fact that the hidden meanings and larger pictures of some of Parry’s texts are beautiful indeed.

But still, I’ve never read a collection of poetry that managed to stay beautiful from the start to the very end, and Caliban’s Redemption is no exception. Perhaps this is due to my inability to appreciate poetry the way poetry “should” be appreciated, or perhaps it’s just a fact that most poets are unable to produce enough good material to make an entire collection. Personally I had a hard time to locate the alleged occult elements in many of his texts; perhaps they were there but I sure couldn’t find many of them.

Upon finishing the short book I didn’t really know what to make of it. Sure, some poetry was very beautiful, had beautiful words, and ways of putting them together, and it’s quite obvious that Parry is a skilled writer. But is that enough to make the book worth buying? Well, I don’t know the answer to that. It’s not very expensive, so why don’t you try it yourself?