In Gregory Leadbetter’s second poetry
collection, Maskwork, mystery, theatre and ritual combine to reveal
rather than to disguise. The mask, in these resonant poems, acts as a way of
becoming, seeing, and knowing – granting access to altered states and
otherworlds hidden within and beyond ourselves. Here, language itself becomes
an animating magic, connecting humans to our ecological roots.
The spirit of revival, renaissance, new
birth and rebirth haunts this book: and at its core, the idea of poetry itself
as a form of learning – an art and a mystery – runs like a quicksilver thread
throughout, between the elusive and the certain. Leadbetter’s meticulously
attuned lyrical poetry tells of the transformative experience of knowing,
a dynamic state of being that forever alters both the knower and the known.