Triptych

The sixth in the series Retrospective Voyages - covering the early poetry of Trevor Maynard - this sixth volume, Triptych, covers his writing from 1982.

The first chapter is mYth, stories told against the background fear of M.A.D (mutually assured destruction), with a flirtation with punk and nihilism, and a determined but directionless attempt at growing up.

Chapter two, MeDiaN sees a settling into the status quo, shifting into employment, and entering the confusing world of the dating conundrum. Not always a place of success but when thrown into his first job with sixteen other hormonal youngsters, a place where a person can bumble into relationships though office parties and new friends.

Chapter three sees life settle into a kind of nothingness, Maynard really had no idea what he wanted from life, except there was this urge, this need, this vocation to put pen to paper in lyric and metaphor, to write poetry, to combat the mUndAnE.

So TRIPTYCH, three chapters of transition, of exploration of post educational life, of the possibility of experiencing all the wonders, the hedonism of youth, the garden of earthly delights, but in actuality, just a lot of fumbling, alcohol, and ennui.

Trevor Maynard spent hours immersed in my own imagination, spent even more hours sleeping, looked for sex rather more than love, and generally slept-walked through his teenage years. Oh, and music, he listened to a lot of music. In retrospect, which is the purpose of these volumes, he was developing, somewhat haphazardly and slowly, his identity, and to do that he needed to experience the ‘real world’ for a few years before getting back to where he should have gone with education in the first place, English Literature.

The five previous books in the series of Respective Voyages are; PATHWAYS, SONGS, STATES OF BEING, THE CREAMER WAKES, and IN THE SHADOW OF. His latest contemporary collection is THREE SCORE.

Triptych is a contemporaneous metaphorical journal/diary 1982, Three Score, a reflective milestone from the vantage point of 2023. To summarise, in this own words:

"I am a child of the ‘sixties; two months old when JFK was assassinated; almost six years old when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, thirteen when punk rock hit, and one of the One in Ten when Thatcher governed. I shared my 38th birthday with the Twin Towers’ attack; survived through a Global Pandemic, in a risky age group, and now, helpless as Russia invades and wages war against Ukraine, and Israel and Palestine erupt (again). The power of nuclear weapons still dominates and threatens: the doomsday clock sits at thirty seconds to midnight, and the end of the world is nigh!”

"Trevor Maynard combines complicated thematic material and unites fractured images with a sure hand" (The Stage, 1990)
"Trevor Maynard's poetry is as galvanic and pertinent as ever" (ASPEN)
"... the unraveling of established structures in a powerful poetic form" (NEETU)