Learning How to Sing extends James Aitchison's celebration of the natural world, and in his poems on islands and seaways, the celebration is a form of pilgrimage. His compositions encompass other topics: for example, James Aitchison on time ranges from recalling the origins of life to recognizing the uncertain future of our world; his vision of lived time and mortality is, expressed in elegiac, lyrics for Duke Ellington, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and lost friends. From the publication of Brain Scans in 1988 to that of The Gates of Light many books later in 2016, the life and nature of the mind have been recurring subjects in James Aitchison's poetry. In this, ample new collection his poems on that theme are subtle, sometimes disturbing and, in the poems on his own mental states, darkly humorous. Learning How to Sing, like all James Aitchison's previous collections, shows his respect for language and the craft of poetry.
