STEPHEN LEWIS savours a volume of poetry by Dreamcatcher editor Paul Sutherland that has been 30 years in the making.

PAUL Sutherland is known in York for editing the literary magazine Dreamcatcher. A slim new volume of poetry produced by York publishing house ENDpapers should further establish his reputation as a poet in his own right.

Seven Earth Odes, more than 30 years in the writing, amounts to a personal meditation on the nature of life, love, art and death.

The opening poem, By The Grave Of Naheebahweequay (pronounce that if you dare), details his long-ago visit, while still a young man living in his native Canada, to the almost forgotten grave of a Native American princess.

Naheebahqeequay was, he says, one of the first Native Americans to convert to Christianity. He himself was a young man "looking for a lost people" - and his search took him to a remote corner of Ontario sandwiched between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

For three days, beneath lowering grey skies, he searched for the grave before stumbling almost by chance on "that chosen site of unkempt grass and rusted railing". He knew immediately that here was something he could write about.

His poem is wonderfully earthy - he talks about the "soil claggy fingers" with which he planted hollyhocks in memory of the long-dead princess; yet what abides is a sense of grey skies, space and emptiness, and of a princess so long gone that not even her ghost remains.

The other poems range from an intense evocation of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh - "His stars, like fire wheels, seem spun," he writes, so that "...as tears of alcohol left in an emptied glass we're filled with afterglow" - to a meditation about his relationship with his parents, and with his dead grandfather.

Poetry may be a minority interest in these days of instant TV fixes, but as a performance art and a way of expressing yourself, it will always remain relevant, Paul insists.

"I run lots of poetry workshops," he says in his soft Canadian drawl, "and you'd be surprised how many young people, 19 year olds, 15 year olds, still want to write poetry."

Seven Earth Odes does not make for easy reading, but, like those tears of alcohol left in an emptied glass, images linger in the mind.

Perhaps, like Dreamcatcher, it will help to inspire a new generation of young poets.

Seven Earth Odes by Paul Sutherland is published by ENDpapers at £9.95

Updated: 09:38 Wednesday, April 28, 2004