Weemoed

The Dutch have a word for a particular sort of melancholy, that curious mixture of longing, nostalgia and quiet sadness that arrives when you realise the past has disappeared without consulting you first. The word is weemoed, and unlike the English language, which generally expects us to make do with feeling a bit miserable, it manages to give the whole experience a certain poetic dignity.

Weemoed (2017), by Tim Dooley and published by Eyewear Publishing, is a thoughtful, perceptive and often gently ironic collection of poetry concerned with memory, loss, the passing of time and the peculiar business of attempting to make sense of a world that refuses to remain conveniently unchanged.

Dooley is an accomplished British poet whose work combines personal observation with an awareness of the larger historical and political forces shaping everyday existence. His poems move between private experience and public events, discovering connections between seemingly insignificant moments and the considerable upheavals taking place beyond the front door.

There is something wonderfully inconvenient about the passage of time. Friends disappear, familiar places change, political certainties collapse, and things that once seemed terribly important become obscure historical footnotes. Meanwhile, entirely trivial memories persist with astonishing determination, frequently occupying valuable mental space that might otherwise be used for remembering where one left the car keys.

Dooley approaches these contradictions with intelligence, emotional restraint and a finely tuned sense of irony. His poetry explores the relationships between memory and identity, the persistence of affection, and the uncomfortable knowledge that the world continues changing regardless of whether anyone has given it permission.

The collection also reflects the political anxieties of its period, including the upheaval surrounding Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. It was an extraordinary moment when the national conversation became an endless argument about belonging, borders and identity, and when even the most innocent discussion about travelling to France could acquire unexpected philosophical complications.

Yet Weemoed is not simply a collection of political reflections or melancholy recollections. It is also attentive to language, landscape, friendship and the small discoveries that make ordinary experience unexpectedly meaningful. Dooley understands that the personal and historical are rarely separate territories, however much we might prefer to keep the morning newspaper away from our emotional lives.

Published in 2017, the collection received a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, recognising the quality of a poet whose work rewards careful reading without insisting that every line must remain an impenetrable mystery.

Condition: Good. A previously owned copy showing the usual signs of reading, handling and passage through the world. Entirely appropriate, really, for a book concerned with the traces that time leaves behind.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where nostalgia is practically a business model, melancholy comes free of charge, and every second-hand book represents another small victory over the relentless modern enthusiasm for throwing perfectly good things away.

A quietly rewarding collection for lovers of contemporary poetry, thoughtful reflection and the distinctly human pleasure of remembering something that can never quite be recovered.

Keep browsing: See more Poetry books Other books by Tim Dooley