Review of Easter Sunday (Monday 24th April 2000)

Easter Sunday departs from the overtly metaphysical or spiritually visionary tone found in much of the poet’s earlier work, offering instead a raw, candid introspection grounded in the immediacy of personal experience. It is a poem of inner negotiation — between productivity and presence, guilt and permission, ambition and love — framed by the disarming ordinariness of a grey bank holiday.

Opening with the mundane yet sensory-rich line, “Today is a typically British bank holiday / Wet and grey,” the poet sets a scene rooted firmly in the everyday. Yet this grounded beginning quickly shifts into something more nuanced, as the mention of thunder becomes a metaphorical rupture: “the sheer power of nature’s noise / Infiltrating our little worlds for a moment.” Here, as so often in the poet’s work, nature offers not only backdrop but intervention — a reminder of larger forces interrupting the small cycles of human preoccupation.

What follows is a stream-of-consciousness reflection on time, identity, ambition, and relational compromise. The poet’s use of quotation marks around “the boyfriend” subtly implies emotional distance or ambivalence — a quiet signal that this relationship is perhaps one of both comfort and constraint. The day, intended for personal tasks and regeneration, has been surrendered instead to “sex and lounging,” an admission that is at once humorous, honest, and laced with frustration.

There is a deep self-awareness running through the poem — “I’m so hard on myself / Most of the time and I don’t even realise it” — that invites the reader into the poet’s internal dialogue. This moment of self-observation reveals the poem’s central tension: the struggle between the soul’s striving toward an idealised version of self (productive, empowered, spiritually aligned) and the messy, necessary humanity of simply being — lazy, in love, distracted, present.

Stylistically, the poem adopts a conversational and diaristic tone, bordering on prose but always governed by a poetic cadence and internal rhythm. There is little traditional punctuation, allowing thoughts to flow organically and unfiltered — echoing the emotional current of the piece. This structure mirrors the internal monologue of someone caught in the act of self-reckoning, where insight arises not in neat stanzas but in recursive loops of realisation and release.

One of the poem’s strengths lies in its unflinching honesty — particularly in articulating the subconscious resentment that arises when external relationships are perceived as obstacles to inner progress: “I start resenting the source of sabotage ie: The boyfriend.” This is not accusation but confession, offered without artifice. It is followed immediately by self-soothing, maturity, and the compassionate reminder: “But it’s OK / I can be patient with myself.” These cycles of critique and comfort speak to a level of psychological insight and emotional vulnerability that feels both grounded and generous.

The poem culminates in a quiet act of defiance against internalised capitalism and perfectionism — “Tell my inner-tyrant / To shut-the-f**k-up” — and then shifts into gratitude. The poet gives themselves “permission / To chill,” embracing a hard-won self-compassion. This shift is not without its spiritual underpinning; forgiveness, patience, and trust in divine timing are embedded in the closing lines, which circle back to the sacredness of rest, love, and appreciation — even on a “rainy Sunday afternoon.”

In conclusion, Easter Sunday is a refreshingly grounded entry in the poet’s body of work. It explores the everyday struggles of self-discipline, relationship, and purpose with clarity and honesty, ultimately finding peace not through transcendence, but through self-forgiveness. The poem’s greatest strength lies in its emotional transparency and relatability — a gentle reminder that spiritual practice sometimes looks like doing nothing at all, and that grace can be found in the simplest of Sundays.