Things Can Only Get Worse

Whilst indignation saturates Allan Cameron’s third collection, Things Can Only Get Worse, whose title is a reminder of Tony Blair’s unkept promises before his first mandate which led us into another NATO war of aggression aimed at terrorising peoples and purloining the property of other nations, this collection also praises the humanity of the great majority of people everywhere. Although Cameron is a writer who goes in search of paradox, there is no contradiction here. Valuing humanity in these cynical times goes hand in hand with outrage at the behaviour of the powerful and the politicians who serve them.We live in a period of insane and unforgiveable violence inflicted by the West on defenceless civilians with all the force of modern military technology. Of all the recent wars, however, Gaza takes on even greater demonic proportions not seen since the Second World War. Even silence is culpable in such circumstances, so the poet has reorganised the collection in order to underscore the horrors we are witnessing, whilst not forgetting that this genocide has historical roots in the European colonisation of the rest of the world, particularly Africa, America and Australia.