Changes of Light

A sudden change of light can transform our perception of the familiar world. Holding such moments of tension, John Cassid gains insights into a situation as he shapes a poem around it. In this new group of poems, he has extended his territory to cover apprehensions of time; his progress is wary but determined, and always held in check by the sureness of his craft. The poems are concerned with the idea of time in many of its aspects: with chance and causality, perspective and circumstance, change and persistence, youth and age. They vary in their approach; some are observations, some speculations, some less formally shaped than others. Changes of Light is published simultaneously with The Fountain, a pamphlet comprising those poems from John Cassidy's booklet, The Dancing Man (Poet's Yearbook Award, 1977), which were not included in Cassidy's book, An Attitude of Mind (Hutchinson, 1978). The title-poem, 'The Fountain', was the precursor of the time poems of Changes of Light.