Swansong

The final collection of poems by a scientist and poet near the end of an extraordinary life. They reflect on unusual incidents in his life and comment on contemporary concerns of life today. Comments covering politics, current conflicts across the world, impacts of climate change, and other concerns are treated with clarity and insight. Some may challenge the reader. Others may reflect concerns shared by the reader. The narrative style of the poems makes them accessible to a wide range of people who have not read poetry since school.

The poems comment on life today in the context of someone whose father worked in provincial administration in the Sudan and who had an extraordinary life in his childhood and youth, including active service during his National Service. With a degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, he worked in a Field Centre, then as a medical entomologist working in tropical forests in Belize and Cameroon, then in charge of a field centre and nature reserve in Yorkshire and then as a Research Fellow based in the Department of Zoology University of Cambridge, researching the extraordinary habits of scuttle flies across the world. Several poems indicate that his wife, of a working-class background, was the gifted support throughout, along with their 3 children.

Concern for the environment, the impact of climate change, wars worldwide and bureaucratic nonsense gave rise to several poems whose insights and comments may surprise. These impacts on ordinary people link these concerns to our everyday lives.

Henry Disney has been writing poems since his youth, with his first collection being published in 1963.