. . . Thrilling through all, the ceaseless song
Of high birds; casually punctuated by
Patterings as of a brief shower along
The grasses as breeze stirs; and by
The time we rise, from open sea
Flooding the channel comes the tide;
Brimmed and linked
Waters from quay
To causeways; and to ride
At last our ebb to sleep, the slow
Tinklings of mast and halyard, music so Distinct.


from `Postcards from Norfolk (1):Blakeney'
            

With each successive collection Andrew Waterman extends his themes and forms, including more and more of the visible and audible world, finding new ways of expressing the music and the laughter. The End of the Pier Show contains lyrics, elegies, satirical and reflective poems. It ventures into the personal and historical past and finds ways of expressing nostalgia without sentimentality. Waterman illuminates the animal world and the world of human creatures in love, in grief, in parenthood. Waterman sides with Coleridge:
`poetry has for its immediate object pleasure'. Here pleasures of all kinds abound.