Reading Campbell McCarthy, at least in Seven Notebooks, reminds of listening to pop-rock by a musician who secretly does know what he or she is doing. There is an accessibility and obviousness to the writing, but the writing can suddenly, almost unnoticeably, slip into a much more refined style or with unexpected depth. I would draw comparisons with Mark Knopffler (!!!!) or Robert Cray, both being wizards with their instruments but still devoted to the basic structures for a ‘song‘. From his poem 3 A. M.:

Worrying the bone of the future into slivers of the past.

Staring out the window at halos of light, the alley trees,
night sounds assembling into tiny monostichic poems,
a hum, knots and blooms, algal minutiae, matchsticks, kindling,
ascetic archways rising and falling, telephone lines
that bridge the rainfall to fulfill a promise written in filaments.

Zones of thought, mimic-markings, allotments geared to suffer,
momentous shapes that seem to belong to another world,
ways of concerning the air like cottonwoods prone to flower,
the farthest away waving like a child being kidnapped.

And then a later poem in the collection:

Night Thoughts

3 a.m.: cheep, cheep.
I, too, sing of happiness--
but I still can’t sleep.

Why say happiness?
Ghost clouds sailing past the moon,
sad and immortal.

Whisper of ground mist.
Find contentment where you can.
Whisper of ground mist.