The Hotel Oneira is, indisputably, technically brilliant. August Kleinzahler demonstrates exceptional linguistic skill throughout, flitting between dialects and frequently employing words both obscure and invented. “A History of Western Music: Chaper 44 (Bebop)” appears to function purely as an exercise in capturing the rhythms of that genre: A ramp’d up dance call it cha-cha-faux-bocci CHOC-A-LATTA-CHOCK-A-LITA-CHOC-A-TIKKA-LOTTA Read More
From the outset, Chris McCabe makes it clear that In the Catacombs is not merely a research project but the fruits of a personal challenge; at its most basic, his quest is to explore the posthumous appraisal of any poet is in relation to his or her innate talent and/or popularity enjoyed while alive. Early Read More
Having already published two acclaimed chapbooks, Michael Pedersen offers a remarkable first full-length collection. From the start, it is clear that these pieces are to be performed, not merely read. Each is written in free verse, often without stanzaic limitations, and Pedersen also makes extensive use of internal rhyme and alliteration. Consider the alliterative and Read More
7 Across : Poet finds himself in the doldrums. Deny everything! (5, 7) Roddy Lumsden has done as much as anyone in modern British poetry to explore and develop form. A string of engrossing and inventive collections stretching back nearly twenty years has cemented his reputation as a singular voice, happy to work with wildly Read More
“Carnal”, “emetic”, “wilfully avant-garde”, “dizzying”, “onanistic”, “brave”…. These are but a few of the impressions that ended up scribbled in front of me as I read through [————]: Placeholder, a collection that cherry picks from the 2004-15 work of American poet Rob Halpern. In truth, this collection pummelled me: it pulled me all over the Read More
Picking up Daniel Thomas Moran’s seventh poetry collection, A Shed for Wood, I found the very title intriguing. I wondered at its importance and so turned to the writing itself, intent on discovering the ideas and implications stowed within — its “poetic” meaning, so to speak. What I did discern was that such an approach Read More
For any reader, the familiar offers easy comforts. Finding fresh material can be daunting in the strange avalanche of the new, and perhaps this is also true for poetry. Poets often struggle to be heard, to entrance wary readers and overwhelmed publishers. Caboodle offers a selection of not just two or three poets, but six. Read More
I didn’t want to finish this book. Of course, all poetry should be savoured, not swallowed quickly in large chunks and this collection is indeed quite meaty. Before moving to specifics, I’ll start with some general points. It’s a perplexing title, is it not? These poems take the reader to Stornoway on the Isle of Read More
The epigraph for Eavan Boland’s latest collection is taken from Virginia Woolf’s essay, Three Guineas – “The outsider will say, ‘in fact, as a woman, I have no country.’” Boland might herself be, “a woman without a country”, given her peripatetic life, dividing her time between Dublin and California where she is Director of the Read More
Philip Gross’s Later follows his much praised collection Deep Field, and the T.S. Eliot prize-winning The Water Table. Largely inspired by the difficult final years he spent alongside his father, this collection moves through the complex traumas of the failing body, and the creeping uncertainty of the mourning process, towards a tentative interaction with the Read More