Neville Wilson

The Early Morning Clapboarder: Poems Neville Wilson

In this selection of poems written over a lifetime, Neville Wilson describes the human need for love. Finding himself in a world and time in which social values have disintegrated, he affirms a vision in which love is central, finally, as a wonderful consolation amid the trials, betrayals and brevity of life. In this vision, time is the inevitable enemy of modern man while being also his intimate friend and savior. The meaning of a life is revealed through moments of felt experience. Life and death, possibility and futility are presented in these moments as from the facets of a crystal. Love provides the significant moments that, he finds, give the most fulfilling aesthetic, spiritual, and sexual expression of the human need for meaning. The collection of poems is divided into four sections. I. Moments remembered can reveal the love between father and son, mother and family, husband and wife despite the opaqueness of the past. II. Aesthetic perceptions, particularly of artists, transform what we understand about life. III. The meaning that death has for life is explored through archetypes, politics, and family attitudes. IV. The triumphs and tragic waste of life is presented as lived in Kennebunkport, Maine.