Finding Hope in the Beehive
Anthony Parker
Self-Published
4/5
There is something profoundly moving about this collection of poetry, each page brimming with humanity and hope. In his foreword, Anthony Parker proudly declares that he is a Mancunian, born and raised in the UK city of Manchester, a place he passionately delights in. But Manchester is a city that has faced its own horror and suffering.
On May 22, 2017, a suicide bomber detonated a shrapnel-laden device in the Manchester Arena following a concert by Ariana Grande. This act of evil killed twenty-two people, the youngest an eight-year-old girl, and injured over a thousand people. What happened that day will live forever within the lives of the Mancunian people, but, as Parker points out in his foreword, it has been met with an outpouring of love and music.
Finding Hope in the Beehive is Parker’s music, a tribute to Manchester and the people who make it such a remarkable city to live in. The atrocity of 2017 hovers in the background of the collection, but Parker wants to focus our attention on everything he loves about the city and its people. But this is no sentimental, misty-eyed chorus of poetry, rather, Parker brings out the beauty and reality of humanity, themes that resonate across the complexities of all humanity.
Throughout the twenty-nine poems that make up Finding Hope in the Beehive, Parker explores various themes, from homelessness and mental health, women’s suffrage, to the Manchester carnival. Whilst he covers a variety of topics, Parker brilliantly reminds the reader, at every turn, what it looks like to be human. For instance, in “Hope” Parker shows us that,
“In every smile from a stranger,
Every door opened,
In every stolen kiss,
I see this.”
The emotional hopefulness within Finding Hope in the Beehive is made even more powerful with those pieces that speak of the city’s pain. “Thoughts on anxiety” and “OK not to be OK” connect deeply, inviting the reader to throw off the mask of pretense. But Parker is never forceful, each line of poetry always an invitation into the world he shares on the page.
Parker’s style is lyrical, a gentleness to his language that shows Parker’s love of people, and his pursuit towards unity, where divisions are broken down, and communities can come together. Whilst this is not a political collection, there are hints of justice, a challenge whispered for a better world.
Finding Hope in the Beehive grounds hope in the lived reality of the Mancunian people, that in turn speaks to people everywhere.
At the vigil the day after the Manchester Arena attack, the Mancunian poet, Tony Wlash, reading his poem, “This Is The Place,” declared,
“…this is the place that’s a part of our bones.”
Parker’s love of Manchester, and all that it inspires him to be, is clearly part of the bones of Finding Hope in the Beehive. And it is all the better for it.
Find Anthony Parker at https://thepoeticprince.home.blog/ or on Twitter @antJP01. Buy Finding Hope in the Beehive over on Lulu.