review by: Jane Crown
title: Dead End Road
126pp.
BeWrite books
(check for pricing)
online ordering:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-End-Road-Richard-Wink/dp/1906609365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249567736&sr=8-1


Richard Wink's new full length book of poems; Dead End Road
is a tour de force of simple beauty,but you may ask yourself is simplicity in writing as powerful if it is as mainlined to the senses as a firework of language? The answer is yes,when the words fall so easily,so stoutly,that no pyrotechnics need be used,one has a graceful deep collection of work that attains amazing heights.I am weary of high brow language in the academe,low brow bombings of  the Gonzo style writer.There are lush and graceful,pure and softer images present here in Dead End Road Richard eschews common language to take us to the divinity of humanity.

It is a book I can cuddle up to near my sunny window frame and sit for hours getting to know the characters within--the forlorn housewife,the working class man and his woe are just two that pierce my mind after having read this book.

 Richard does indeed add that sense of a pastoral quality to his poetry.I bid you look at this brilliant gem from one of the poems Housewife-a favourite of mine..
Underwater she understands/soap buds gather like white druids/
over stubborn tired eyelids. Elegance,anguish,perfection I cry!

His poems have a denseness of character,a rural and sometime even urban softness that draws you into their circumference.These images are not fuzzy,they are stolid,framed directly to your head space and nailed promptly to your psyche,they are searing images--as cleanly,serenely and cruelly painted as any Dickens novel!

Richard Wink is a word-smith in Dead End Road .He is very astutely capable at loosely following not only us but self,keeping a distance that says he knows us,he knows who he is watching,yes,self too.This is a collection that does not clack high in the cheek,that does not yell or bluster,it is a subtle shifting creature of daily lives and life,dancing sweetly in the mirror.It is the reality of a world filled with  engaging,curious people,it is us,in short.Filled either with pain or glory,it is truth in all it's agonies of dark
rough,fearsomely painted beauty.