Poetry book review: ARCHETYPES OF DOUBT

ARCHETYPES OF DOUBT
by Robert Maddox-Harle 

Publisher: ‎Cyberwit.net
Publication date: ‎June 30 2025
Language: English
Print length: 73 pages
ISBN-13: 978-9363546882

 

Reviewed by Adrian Rogers

Poets have not always been popular, especially if they speak truth to power. It is said that one Chinese Emperor banished poets from his court. Times have indeed changed; nowadays we simply ignore them. However, for those who do read poetry, there is no ignoring Robert Maddox-Harle’s ARCHETYPES OF DOUBT. Don’t be misled by its categorization as ‘free verse’. There is an iron discipline here, and an absolute command of language. In fact, you could say that the words—quite often almost jump out at you. The first verse of the opening poem being, in fact, an ‘archetype’ of things to come…

 

“In the remote village of raw emotions

seduced by the tyranny of time

wheeling photons mesmerize the unwary,

Shamanic visions invade the mind

mysterious unknowable forces

expose archetypes from the Prima Materia

delving deep into chthonian realms…”

 

Adrian Rogers

But this poet is also capable of moving quickly from the disturbing to the gentle and devotional, as in the closing verse of Barranghatti Hut…

 

“A Black Raven sings to me from the shade

and a Praying Mantis is praying atop a fire-burnt log,

I am praying also

praying for this sacred land.”

 

Then in Tipping Point, the poet introduces a mystical element…

 

“Song lines and Singing Bowls harmonize
and the Shaman dances,

soon the ecstatic awareness of no-thing-ness

will seek refuge at the Tipping Point

the Still Point will spin in rapture

and the eternal dance accelerate once more.”

 

And all this just in the first three poems; truly not a poet to be taken for granted. And if you’re looking for political comment, how about this, from A Silent Poem…?

 

“…we have new laws of “Silencing”

“Free Speech” in protest now condemned

across this state of New South Wales,

when will these dictators ever end?”

 

But after pain and suffering, surely there has to be a healing…?

 

“…Her tears fill the waterholes

billimari-billimari,

reinvigorating the dying earth

washing away the senseless killing,

years of European dominance…”

 

and music plays its part, for is not music the poetry of sound?

 

This, from The Perfect Fifth is another way of making the point…

 

“…graceful melodic breezes surrounded me

mauve with tints of orange,

energies dancing in harmony

gently massaged my spirit…”

 

Do I detect a hint of synesthesia here? If that’s so, I share it, and thus it goes on, with challenge in Sustainability or Extinction, and that inexorably truthful statement in Grandma’s Fruitcake…

 

“…There is no ‘stairway to heaven’,

is no—‘telephone to glory’,

only a shimmering ladder to the stars

a ladder for all to climb…”

 

Do I detect here an element of Ancient Egypt, perhaps? But there is no compromising with ‘truth’ for this poet, and—unlike Pontius Pilate, no doubts either about ‘truth’s inescapable reality’. But any poet offering a whole collection must lighten up somewhere. One cannot be relentlessly inquisitorial all the time, or readers will simply switch off. So, in Dumparee—a very sub-standard motel, we get…

 

“…Torn carpet, soggy under the bench

a broken fridge with a putrid stench.

Think I might have caught covid hepatitis or lice

No, really this motel was not very nice…”

 

Well, we’ve all been there at some time, and so it goes on. Then Doors of Perception makes me wonder if the poet’s been reading Aldous Huxley…

 

“…The secret language of colour shouts

‘Behold the Key to the Evolution of this World

Beware the deception of the Triad’…”

 

The poet casts a wide net, from transcendence to humour, protest, the music of Arvo Pärt—also a favourite of mine, the Rainbow Serpent, darkness, light, and do I detect an element of Salvador Dali in…A Promise?

 

But at the very end—original to the last, what the poet calls…The Last Manifesto of an Ageing, Cynical Artist, in…

 

No Fish Again!

 

“i went fishing today….

for the last time!

illusions drifted away

purged by the howling southerly,

no fish again!”

 

…and on that final page, with a nod to Leonard Cohen, the poet concludes…

 

“…No explanations,

No reasons,

No philosophy,

No art-speak stun-gun hype,

 

MysteriumTremendum et Fascinans

is all there is!”

 

I hope that Archetypes of Doubt is not Maddox-Harle’s last publication. I would not for a moment claim that societies want to hear what he has to say, but they certainly need to hear it…!

BIO: Adrian Rogers was born and educated in England, moving to Ireland in 1969 to teach Music and English - both north and south of the border. In 1978 with his wife he moved to the Shetland Islands, in 1985 to Australia, and in 1992 to Papua New Guinea - teaching at the Internationl School in Lae. In 1993 he returned to Australia, where he taught music privately until retiring in 2005.

He now focuses on writing stories, and above all poetry as the music of words. He has four fantasy novels published in Canada, two in Queensland, and numerous poetry collections published in Adelaide by Ginninderra Press. He has contributed poetry, essays and short stories, to many Australian periodicals, and also as contributions to anthologies. His work is influenced by his surroundings, beliefs, relationships, and life experiences. As for its style, he prefers to let the poetry speak for itself.

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Setu, August 2025