MY COLLECTIONS
Biography and Books :
I am a retired Headteacher living in Warfield, Berkshire, England. I work as an editor and also write reviews of poetry for magazines. I am a member of the Management Team for SOUTH Poetry Magazine. My first collection, Close to the Edge was published in 1996 & won the prestigious ROSEMARY ARTHUR AWARD, currently it is not in print. My second collection, Short Stories : Suburban Lives and my third volume, Rough Music, have been published in England by BLUECHROME. My new volume , Choosing the Route, is now available.
My work has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and on the internet and in translation.
My poetry has been broadcast on national & local radio in Great Britain.
CLOSE TO THE EDGE
My first collection,winner of The Rosemary Arthur Award, is currently not in print.
SHORT STORIES : SUBURBAN LIVES
Many small communities have lost their identities as they have been engulfed by suburban sprawl. Lives have been dramatically altered by the challenges of urban life.
This collection sets out to consider the varied and sometimes surprising events of suburbia. For some it offers a welcome anonymity; for others it is a stage, but many remain isolated and lonely, living in a sea of houses...
"Patrick B. Osada's second collection is the immensely confident work of a writer who combines accessibility with a fine appreciationof an enormous range of forms...Short Stories : Suburban Lives impresses with its length and diversity, and Osada, in returning to the village setting of Edward Thomas's famous poem, uses familiar form in a new way : in Adlestrop Again he recovers something unexpected in the vastly changed, yet still evocative place :
Still no one left and no one came that way
So I drove on as skies grew mistier
Through rains of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. Adlestrop Again
In this apparently desultory imagery and rhyme, breathes an intrepid and important new English voice." WILL DAUNT ENVOI
ROUGH MUSIC
In ROUGH MUSIC, I have attempted to record many everyday and seasonal events of the place where I live. I have been doing this for a number of years and many of the bucolic poems from my earlier collections are also set in this area of Berkshire.
I claim nothing exceptional for Warfield - in terms of history, scenery or wild life. There are places with more tales to tell, areas that are more beautiful, or enjoy exotic or protected flora or fauna. What makes it special for me, my neighbours and the many visitors who come here to walk, ride or cycle is the very fact that much of Warfield remains untouched and unspoilt in an area riven by motorways and so close to the concrete towers of “New Town” Bracknell…. It is still possible to be in touch with a life and landscape which has been obliterated by “planners and developers” in other less fortunate villages.
This collection is, in part, a response to the plans of the local council and developers to build up to 2,200 house on semi-rural land, changing for ever the nature of this area...
Once the bulldozers move in the deer, that have roamed this area for 1,000 years, will move on and with them many other species will leave.
With tarmac and streetlights Warfield will be submerged beneath a sea of houses, its traditions and rural atmosphere destroyed…
In the face of “progress” and the mindless plans of those happy to see Warfield turned into an “urban extension” of Bracknell, I offer up these poems as a celebration of local life and scenery and a warning of what we stand to lose.
"In his third volume, Rough Music (bluechrome), Osada's lyricism and social concern are again evident. In the Warfield Poems his poetry is lyrically bucolic. However, his pastoral themes are underpinned by a concern with loss and the potential ravaging of village and countryside by planners and property developers. Away from the countryside Osada populates his collection with a diverse range of characters - some famous, some iconic. He again demonstrates a lively concern with contemporary issues and attitudes, all reflected through a prism of compassion and wry humour."
"This collection shows great strength of feeling and achievement...ROUGH MUSIC has a substantial core of finely crafted poems which will stand the test of time."
James Roderick Burns NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
Osada is a poet able to work with emotion, a poet who can take small events and small places, observe them precisely and elucidate them with a deft touch to reveal our shared humanity and the moments of connection."
Jan Fortune-Wood, Coffee House Poetry
NEW :
ROUGH MUSIC is now available as an e-book from AMAZON.
To see this book at Amazon click this link :
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/b0060wezrm
CHOOSING THE ROUTE
CHOOSING THE ROUTE
“How do we live our lives? – In hope or despair?
Whilst some navigate the world with careful planning, others are reactive and impulsive…
What part is played by destiny, chance and happenstance?
In Choosing the Route Patrick B. Osada celebrates life’s journey.
His poems are insightful and engaging. He views the natural world and human relationships with compassion and sometimes through the lens of sardonic wit. From the lyrical lament of star-crossed lovers, to a gritty exploration of divorce,his poems shift in shape and time, yet retain a remarkably honest, authentic and demotic voice.”
Indigo Dreams Publishing
CHOOSING THE ROUTE
Published by Indigo Dreams Publishing ISBN 978-1-907401-13-8
TO visit my BOOK PAGE at INDIGO DREAMS PUBLISHING and to sample my new collection, click this link:
www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/patrick-osada/4543329203
BUY the new collection direct from the author!
As a special introductory offer, signed copies of the collection can be purchased from this website.
CHOOSING THE ROUTE (recommended retail price £7.50) for £5.50 (including postage and packing).
FOR ALL PERSONAL ORDERS:
NEW REVIEW OF CHOOSING THE ROUTE :
FROM SOUTH 44 (Autumn 2011)
One poem, The Forest Road, opens: “It
was his chosen route”. It involves a
“lone thin buzzard” eking out its winter,
a “slight deer” leaping a frozen
ditch (to safety), and a dead cyclist “in
muggy heat” and his “twisted bike”.
The theme is not touched upon directly
elsewhere, though mortality is
never far away. There are journeys
beyond a cycle’s range, but the perceptions
are on two wheels, grafted out of
the poet’s nearby experiences, exposed
to the ordinary elements. These do not
preclude wise observations and a humanitarian
mindset. Force of Nature (the
first poem) starts:
Whoosh! Like a force of nature they arrive….
Starlings. This boisterous, squawking, noisy mob….
(rather like cyclists swooping downhill),
but that energy settles down into
a more general contemplativeness, occasionally
re-erupting in poems such
as For an Action Man’s 70th Birthday and
Fresh Figs (very much in Lawrentian
mode). These are the poems of a man
with a deep appreciation of life, humorous
at times and lightly anarchic,
aware of experience’s contradictions
and connections (Towards Winter and
Strange but True) but rarely straying far
from the personal in the public. The
book’s dedication is “for my compass
and sheet anchor”; a poem ends “The
only way is forward – looking back”;
there is nostalgia for the gap between
past and present. Above all there are
darkening tones and private disturbances
echoing the unease of The Forest
Road, and hence the poet’s “chosen
route”, and waylaying the reader from
settling into a clear surmise about the
book’s true nature. For all that, the joys
and uncertainties are held in place
(mostly) by a simple line structure –
even if it seems to rhyme much more
than it does!
“The journey is the reward” is the
quoted ancient Chinese proverb. I’ve
been rewarded by this one.
RG Gregory
FROM SOUTH 44 (Published Autumn 2011)
