The Ram In The Thicket by Brown, Adrian

Then, achingly, there burst
From Abraham’s retracted lips a cry
Drawn from the depths of his profoundest self,
An atavistic messianic howl,
That rang among the heights, re-echoing,
Resounding in their ears. And now behold!
The normally-impassive patriarch
Stands upright, garments streaming in the wind,
Head raised to altitudes of ecstasy
Arms stretched on high saluting the sublime,
In theomorphic pose. His voice declaims
In thrilling cadence, charged with deference:
“Yes, Lord! Here is Your humble servant, Lord!
What is Your will?”

The Ram in the Thicket narrates in humanistic, non-pious terms and in sensual blank verse the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. A suspenseful adventure story concerned with the extreme demands a religion can impose, the poem raises social and philosophical issues relevant to the world situation today: such issues as the balance between faith and reason, between a leader and the governed masses, between principle and pragmatism. It uses a language both recondite and racy, deploying the full vocabulary resources of the English language.

‘Adrian Brown’s take on the famous biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac is
characteristically venturesome, accomplished and lively.’ — Alan Brownjohn

‘Read this vast poem… Why not?’ — Sir Derek Jacobi

'This suspenseful adventure story raises social and philosophical issues relevant to the world situation today; the balance between faith and reason, between a leader and the governed masses, between principle and pragmatism’
— Dr. Suman Bala, The Indo-American Review

Adrian Brown has had a thirty-year career in theatre and television, winning seven awards as a director, including a BAFTA nomination and an EMMY. Now he has returned to his early love of writing verse. He skilfully sustains long narrative poems, both serious and humorous, in a variety of verse forms. Sahara or Except for George, a picaresque travel narrative, with decorations by Emily Johns, was published by Hearing Eye in 2006.

Reviews of The Ram In The Thicket

	21 February 2008
Reviewer: Andy Croft Publication: The Morning Star
Adrian Browne's The Ram in the Thicket (Hearing Eye, £6.95) is a book-length epic retelling of the Old Testament story of Isaac and Abraham. Brown writes beautiful blank-verse, in places like a fantastic pastiche of Milton. But this is not a religious book. Brown sees the story as a fertility myth, representing the passing of human sacrifice and the development of the theological and legal doctrines of commutation. But it is also a story for our time, as in Wilfred Owen's The Parable of the Old Men and the Young. We live in an age where the young are still sacrificed by their elders - "it's a price worth paying" according to Blair - by those who "ambush truth or blare a blatant lie/Not to defend their people from attack/ (As Abraham had shielded Isaac), but/Bull headedly to sacrifice their sons/On battlefields where mass destruction yawned/Then grant their graceless gods of gilt-edged greed/Gross usufructs of money, power and oil." Andy Croft

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