After many years writing books, stories and poetry, it has gradually dawned on me that I had not come across any book that gave, not only a fine collection of poems, but also contained a useful textbook that informed the reader of the skills used by the author in composing their extensive range of well-constructed work. I also felt that it would be interesting and useful if authors had added a note or two about where the idea for some of their poems had emerged.
This poetry collection of mine is sprinkled with such titbits. The textbook serves to lead the reader through the basics of poetry and gives clear explanations for rhyme and meter that are essential for many, but not all, forms of poem. I have clearly described the construction of twenty-eight different forms including Sonnet, Ballad, Sestina, Haiku, Limerick, Cinquain, Luc Bat, free verse, blank verse, and many more.
In the final part of the textbook, I have given the reader the whole of an anonymous ballad together with a complete dissection of its form and structure, poetic techniques, figures of speech, mood tone and impact and its summary and meaning.
I believe that my book gives enough data and explanation to satisfy the needs of an aspiring poet, or indeed anyone who enjoys poems but wants to understand them a little better.
Chessar, Robert Campbell: - I was born in Glasgow in January 1942. I never knew my father. He was killed, in December that same year, fighting in North Africa. Before my mother got married, she had been 'in service' with an upper-class family of the town. After twelve years of marriage she was left to raise me and my two older sisters and an older brother. Grove Street School saw me through my unexciting primary education. Just before my twelfth birthday I was catapulted from the slums of Glasgow into a new reality at Queen Victoria School in the village of Dunblane. For the next six years I was transformed by the discipline, comfort and character-building of that military boarding school for the sons of Scottish servicemen. The story of my childhood is told in my first book, "27, Raglan Street".In 1959 I left my secondary school to enter a career in the building industry, designing and managing mechanical building services for commercial, medical, public and military establishments. My 47 years in this field was split between project managing as a contractor with Kvaerner, Sulzer Infra, Thermal Transfer and Scottish & Southern Energy, and as a design engineer in architectural and engineering practices with Ove Arup, Wylie Shanks, Irons Foulner, and Kenneth Munro. My broad experience of the politics, in-fighting, and the rampant abuse of authority by people in power, served me well in creating the story for my second book, "Achilles Heel." Aside from my career, I have many other interests including, from my youth, writing stories and poetry. That has always been especially fulfilling and became the genesis of this, my third book, "A Poetic Quair & Textbook". Robert Campbell Chessar
