Poetry review – FOREIGN FORAYS: Sue Wallace-Shaddad follows Antony Johae through travel poems in a variety of moods
Foreign Forays
Antony Johae
Mica Press
ISBN 978-1-869848-39-2
30 pp £9
This is Antony Johae’s fifth publication and is a pamphlet of poems which reflects a well-travelled life, revealing a deep interest in literature, history and music. Added to this is a gentle sense of humour which surfaces in a number of poems.
Johae was clearly interested in travel from childhood as evinced in the first poem “My First Bike” where looking at trains is a form of escape from bullies: ‘Then, from the platform, I’ll see the London trains roar by’. In the second poem, “Staring through My Window in Winter”, Johae, ill in bed, remembers past journeys and flights. The poem ends
I get up to draw the warm curtains,
see my case, lid open, beckoning me to pack.
The poems then take us to a host of places: Bruges, Brubeck, Cancale, Warsaw, Paris, Calais, Prague, Leuven, Münster and Sfax. The poet evokes romanticism and wanderlust through his references to Wordsworth in “Wandering, Wondering”, where the poem begins ‘I wandered lonely as a tourist’ and, in “From Bruges to Brubeck”, the second stanza starts ‘I wandered lonely in a drizzle with the crowd’.
In writing about these ‘foreign forays’ (the apt title of the pamphlet), Johae brings each place to life through his descriptive images. A town square is evoked in “A Day in Leuven”
I have seen the slanted sun lose itself behind a stepped gable,
the square descend into shadow, café lights coming on discretely;
Equally visual are the descriptions of ‘estuary and withied creeks, sanctuaries and purple saltings’ in “Staring through My Window in Winter” and of the wedding celebration in “Reception”:
Women in white, pink, blue, green, purple hijab direct them to a white throne,
she tiara-crowned, he bow-tied in black.
I particularly enjoyed “Burnt Sorrento”, a fragmented ekphrastic poem responding to a painting by Brenda Jones which is on the cover page of the pamphlet, with such phrases as ‘chalk-pink on hot-rock orange’ and ‘torrid – scorched – sirocco – swept –’
Music is often featured in the pamphlet, whether musical instruments played at the reception or musicians playing on a platform in “From Bruges to Brubeck”:
the light giving rhyme to their riffs
to the piano’s counterpoint
to the sax’s syncopations
In “Prague Swing” the indented form of the poem gives a feeling of jazz riffs. Sound is captured in “A Day in Leuven” with the ‘thump-thump of a late music boutique’ and ‘a car purring close past me’ and then suddenly
the four-four time of a tango stopped me
staccato-wise in the street.
There is a rather more sardonic reference to the musical term ‘key’ in “In the Men’s Room at the Frederick Chopin Museum, Warsaw” when wishing for a key to a faucet: ‘By “key”, I don’t mean C major or F minor’. This humorous rhyming poem recounts problems opening a tap.
The reader is also invited to smile when the poet muses on the journey of a money spider dangling from his cap as he boards a plane in “Spinning a Tale”. Also amusing is the poem “Arrival at Rafik Hariri International Airport, Beirut”, which has a passport officer quoting Shakespeare after looking at Johae’s photograph: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ “Lebanese Lapse” may strike a chord with many readers, describing the challenge of finding the exit in a multi-storey car park:
Now I’m wheeling again past taken spaces.
Fall into a funnel, destined for infernal circles.
Other poems in the pamphlet touch on serious sides of life. “Refugee at Calais”, also based on a bathroom encounter, mentions the challenges of a refugee’s life, his return ‘to the camp they call La Jungle’. A noteworthy poem is “At the Museum of the History of Polish Jews”. This is deeply is imbued with sadness; and Johae also includes a translation of the poem into German, shown on the facing page, which adds another dimension to the reader’s experience. “El Baba’s Ride” describes Pope Benedict’s visit to Lebanon, ‘his shoulders stooped in modern martyrdom’.
I will end this review with a quotation from ‘”Maqam in the Park of Baths (for Faruk) “which brings together music, poetry, literature and Johae’s love of Middle East culture. There is an air of wistful melancholy as a man plays his ‘nine-reed Ney’
[…] Had there been words
You would have sung of love – of Rumi’s rapture
and Hafez sore-yearning for his bride.
Apr 28 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Antony Johae
Poetry review – FOREIGN FORAYS: Sue Wallace-Shaddad follows Antony Johae through travel poems in a variety of moods
This is Antony Johae’s fifth publication and is a pamphlet of poems which reflects a well-travelled life, revealing a deep interest in literature, history and music. Added to this is a gentle sense of humour which surfaces in a number of poems.
Johae was clearly interested in travel from childhood as evinced in the first poem “My First Bike” where looking at trains is a form of escape from bullies: ‘Then, from the platform, I’ll see the London trains roar by’. In the second poem, “Staring through My Window in Winter”, Johae, ill in bed, remembers past journeys and flights. The poem ends
The poems then take us to a host of places: Bruges, Brubeck, Cancale, Warsaw, Paris, Calais, Prague, Leuven, Münster and Sfax. The poet evokes romanticism and wanderlust through his references to Wordsworth in “Wandering, Wondering”, where the poem begins ‘I wandered lonely as a tourist’ and, in “From Bruges to Brubeck”, the second stanza starts ‘I wandered lonely in a drizzle with the crowd’.
In writing about these ‘foreign forays’ (the apt title of the pamphlet), Johae brings each place to life through his descriptive images. A town square is evoked in “A Day in Leuven”
Equally visual are the descriptions of ‘estuary and withied creeks, sanctuaries and purple saltings’ in “Staring through My Window in Winter” and of the wedding celebration in “Reception”:
I particularly enjoyed “Burnt Sorrento”, a fragmented ekphrastic poem responding to a painting by Brenda Jones which is on the cover page of the pamphlet, with such phrases as ‘chalk-pink on hot-rock orange’ and ‘torrid – scorched – sirocco – swept –’
Music is often featured in the pamphlet, whether musical instruments played at the reception or musicians playing on a platform in “From Bruges to Brubeck”:
In “Prague Swing” the indented form of the poem gives a feeling of jazz riffs. Sound is captured in “A Day in Leuven” with the ‘thump-thump of a late music boutique’ and ‘a car purring close past me’ and then suddenly
There is a rather more sardonic reference to the musical term ‘key’ in “In the Men’s Room at the Frederick Chopin Museum, Warsaw” when wishing for a key to a faucet: ‘By “key”, I don’t mean C major or F minor’. This humorous rhyming poem recounts problems opening a tap.
The reader is also invited to smile when the poet muses on the journey of a money spider dangling from his cap as he boards a plane in “Spinning a Tale”. Also amusing is the poem “Arrival at Rafik Hariri International Airport, Beirut”, which has a passport officer quoting Shakespeare after looking at Johae’s photograph: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ “Lebanese Lapse” may strike a chord with many readers, describing the challenge of finding the exit in a multi-storey car park:
Other poems in the pamphlet touch on serious sides of life. “Refugee at Calais”, also based on a bathroom encounter, mentions the challenges of a refugee’s life, his return ‘to the camp they call La Jungle’. A noteworthy poem is “At the Museum of the History of Polish Jews”. This is deeply is imbued with sadness; and Johae also includes a translation of the poem into German, shown on the facing page, which adds another dimension to the reader’s experience. “El Baba’s Ride” describes Pope Benedict’s visit to Lebanon, ‘his shoulders stooped in modern martyrdom’.
I will end this review with a quotation from ‘”Maqam in the Park of Baths (for Faruk) “which brings together music, poetry, literature and Johae’s love of Middle East culture. There is an air of wistful melancholy as a man plays his ‘nine-reed Ney’