Raymond Fenech

Growing with the Shadows Raymond Fenech

"In my reading of Growing With the Shadows, most of all I visualized a man of infinite suffering, greatly affected by Life or Death, nonetheless without losing hope and that ceaseless struggle towards the light... Many times, Fenech is a man bordering on the grim reaper's realm, yet also a concerned environmentalist worried about the relentless action of his fellow men against nature and the conservation of places, as well as the lost values, both material and spiritual... I was enraptured by Fenech´s poems because he took me on a time traveling experience at roller-coaster speed. A cursory read of the book would lead any impromptu reader to want to separate some poems from others but after you read them all, you realize that it cannot be done: the poems stand and flare on their own right as a necessary and sweeping monolithic comet. They belong with each other, and with the author. Each seems to have been carved with Fenech´s blood, entrails and experiences of a sensitive poet slit by what he sees and feels, and his need to display things as they are, crude and raw, presenting characters and events as they happened." (Prof. Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, Associate Professor at the Holguin University, Cuba)