Reviews and Notices
Reviews must be concise, measured and constructive - we don't like the destructive
types of review, nor the ones by obvious ego-trippers.
We will normally name the reviewer.
REVIEWS:
SallyE's Review Shelf
Mercedes Clarasó. A Blessing of Unicorns, Calder Wood
Press 28pp. £4
A sequence really, with a strong devotional feel,
these mainly first person, very personal poems deal
with daily life seen through unicorn imagery, as
though the reader is taken by the hand through a
thicket in which unicorns are seen from time to time,
unicorns which are given heavy significance each time
we come across them or pass them by. They must
represent beauty, sight, lightheartedness and purpose.
Without the lighthearted note it might be said that
the poet takes unicorn delusions a little far, e.g. in
the poem about the unicorn traffic jam! or they graze
in meadows, as in The Call, as though they were
ordinary animals that sometimes did peculiar things.
There's the Checkout Unicorn, one of the most
individually effective poems, set in a supermarket.,
and in the last poem, the author takes possession of
all the unicorns as though they belonged to her.
The author explains that 'a blessing of unicorns" is
listed as a collective noun, and it is certainly right
for this book. The unicorns bless amid the struggle
of day to day life, just as they appear among forest
scenes. Mercedes Clarasó is a retired academic and
novelist, who has been around the poetry scene for
some time, so it is good to see this handsome
publication of her work, which is also a step forward
on the road for Calder Wood Press.
Alexander Hutchison: Carbon Atom. Link-Light 2006
£8.00
I have written on Link-Light already, but rather too
briefly. It has grown on me. Its cherry red cover has
been lying on a table & I've read it a few times. It
ends with a long poem/letter infused with the Greek
countryside, addressed to Gael Turnbull, and possibly
the best thing in the book. Gael knew everyone and
everyone liked him: recently he has been sanctified to
an alarming degree (I'm thinking of Gael's old
duplicator). Gael was a kind and classless man. He
used to take to the road at times - Ian remembers a
conversation with him aeons ago - and we were involved
in his latter "busking" of Edinburgh High Street,
when we stored his paraphernalia in our shop. He
brought out the best in people as Alexander Hutchison
is aware:
Gael, I should have written more letters to you in
past. / It would have done me good.
In this poem, you know that Sandy is not being
sardonic. He can be. He hedges his bets, writes
deliberately obscure arguments so you can savour the
language, as in a foreign tongue. At his best he is
acrobatic, classic, numinous, with the daring to write
about the carbon atom or indeed the trial and death of
Socrates.
North Idea: an anthology of poems by Shetland writers,
2007
This is the seventh pamphlet produced by North Idea.
All the main Shetland poets are represented. More than
half the poems are in English, which is a
disappointment to me as I have recently become very
interested in Shetlandic, particularly since I
realised its closeness to Tyneside's wrongly ridiculed
Geordie - and also, I'm told, to Hull. Shetlandic
could offer a better orthography, for one thing, to
these East Coast tongues.
Shortish, upbeat poems, a modicum of suitable
illustrations, a great wee pamphlet, a good idea.
A Turbulent Wake: poems of islands, paintings and
people by Henry Marsh.
Cromwell Press, 2007. hardback, £10.
Extremely well published by Alexander McCall Smith at
Cromwell Press. (I could wish more high earning
authors would take to publishing good but less
commercible poets.)
Henry Marsh's writing is impeccable, if it gives to
the ear a mystifying Englishness for one who has
apparently worked in Scotland much of his life. The
best poems, to my mind, are those on paintings, a
genre I don't usually much go for. In these he has
managed to realise the scenes and develop them in
language, rather than rely on the reader for some
understanding of the picture, as though a redundant
commentator was standing beside you at a gallery.
These poems take the viewer onwards. Here's a bit:
You catch Picasso's Woman Ironing
as if through a leaded window. You wince
at the ache in the skeletal shoulder
from the iron's heavy plod. Her head
is an intolerable burden, her eye a void.
As an object, the book is impeccable. Let's see Henry
Marsh venturing into the poetic community, around the
scene a bit more.
Sally Evans
Blaenau Festiniog: Gomer Press, Ceredigion, £19.99
This is a beauty.. and beautiful books like this,
cost. They cannot be funded out of one's back pocket.
Gwyn Thomas, who succeeded Gwyneth Lewis as National
Poet of Wales, wrote the words for this compilation of
Jeremy Moore's beautiful, often eccentric photographs
of the country's slate capital. A gorgeous poetry
book, in the newest tradition of haiku and website,
matching images and poems. The Welsh Books Council has
supported it (oh, and it's in Welsh...naturally - so
that's something like the Gaelic Books Coucil). And it
will sell to anyone intrigued by Blaenau Festiniog,
that's pretty well everyone who goes there, as well as
those who can see in it statements about the whole of
Wales. It's in English too, so you dont have an excuse
not to buy it if you can't read the more prominent
Welsh.
Robert Fergusson: Selected poems. Edited and
Introduced by James Robertson. Polygon. £9.99
Who better to sort out an edition of Fergusson than
learned Stirling/Fife Scot James Robertson, whose
understanding of poetry, criticism and Scottish
literary history, and also his common sense, stand
him in good stead in presenting, we hope to a wider
audience, this pretty thorough edition of Fergusson.
It's well produced and legible as it needs to be.
If you are inclined to think some of the notes
unnecessary, or that the glossary inclines to the
ridiculous, remember the students reading this in
America and England.
A student from the North of England contacted me last
month about her thesis on "depressive 18th century
poets" and thank goodness, she had already got onto
Fergusson. Even better, she had already ordered this
book.
Fergusson's poems are so firmly rooted (or paved) in
Edinburgh that he is indeed worthy of upgrading to a
university curriculum poet, though to say he is
"better than Burns " as I heard a politician opine, is
ridiculous. Fergusson was sadly prevented from
reaching his full potential by the establishment
forces of class and church, and by the
misunderstanding and mistreatment of his state of
mind. Burns did reach his full potential, and that's
why Burns is a world poet, whereas Fergusson is an
important Scottish poet.
Gill McEvoy: Uncertain Days. HappenStance. £3.00
This brave, funny, cheerful, pithy poet is one of Helena
Nelson's new HappenStance authors, and a good thing
too. Gill lived through her husband's death from
cancer, while still a mother of a growing family, and
then recovered from cancer herself. She cheers herself
and us with her honest humour. Her poems are not
merely therapeutic, they are also very good, as you
would expect from HappenStance.
Richard Price: Greenfields. Carcanet. £9.95
This, er, second book is on similar lines to last year's.
Republication of various pieces, and some new ones,
with a better acknowledgement to ourselves (thank you
Carcanet). Vintage Richard Price.
Elizabeth Burns: The Lantern Bearers. Shoestring
Press, 91 Devonshire Avenue, Beeston, Nottingham, NG9
1BS £8.95
Another diehard author who has sought "mix
and match" publication in the present climate. This
one is a cracker, with reliably well observed, well
expressed, artistic poems on her sensitive, feminine
themes, from a favourite poet of many. Includes
Elizabeth's poems about Gwen John.
Tom Phillips: Reversing into the Cold War. Firewater
Press, Bristol. Super-contemporary poem dealing with
conflict in central Europe and the Balkans.
Beautifully written and impressive, if a little
expensive at £5.50 for 24 pages, each one a 12-line
section of the poem. Front cover illus: Heather Grace
Stewart (Bewrite), printer Martin Holroyd (Poetry
Monthly) and promoted by Tony LJ (Various Artists).
These guys are all good on the internet too.
[Tom tells us that his book is also available direct from
himself at £4. Email Tom Phillips.
]
Sally Evans
Three from Colin
James Roderick Burns: The Salesman's Shoes, tanka. Modern English
Tanka Press, $13.95. 978-0-6151-4396-5
The author lives in Edinburgh, and is one of the editors of Other Poetry magazine
(which I also recommend highly)
.
First, what's a tanka? It's a Japanese form originally. The classical form has five lines
with syllable count 5-7-5-7-7 and was a fin de siecle flowering deriving from the ancient
waka form. The modern English tanka maintains the five line structure, but is not
restricted by the syllable count.
The book contains 75 poems which wonderfully demonstrate the possibilities of the
five line form. There's a clarity of purpose in each poem which makes each a complete
universe. The form is used in Japan today mainly for poems of the senses and of the
self, and the poems here are mostly written in that spirit. They are subtle, personal and
evocative, written by a poet who is not only a master of the form, but who has interesting
things to say about the world.
The form also allows for a wide variety of subjects for the poems.
New boots and a peach -
odd that the moment I feel
grit beneath my sole
is the moment I notice
my teeth strike against the stone.
Here we've got the ideal combination of sense and self, observation and reflection.
These diminishing
strings of e-mail messages
(will we or won't we)
build like squeezed concertinas
to a magnificent yes.
An original image, a deceptively simple expression, producing an image which
lingers in the mind.
On my coffee cup
Warning - contents may be hot.
Beyond the terrace
a wren takes flight, instructions
stamped on the back of its wings.
A lovely contrast between the natural world and the modern human one.
I hugely enjoyed this book: it's been an eye-opener and a joy to read. One of the
unexpected side effects has been that it has not only made me want to read
more tanka, but to write them, for the first time in about ten years.
***
Annie Freud: The Best Man That Ever Was. Picador, £8.99
This is a collection that has already been much talked about. The blurb describes
her as "one of the most startlingly original poets to have emerged in recent years."
Is she? I'll answer with another question, "Who is?" However, leaving marketing
hyperbole aside, I found this collection to be one of the most entertaining reads
I've had in a long time. She's witty, sly and clever, and I like that in a poet. I never
felt the urge to skip a poem in reading the book, not even the prose poems (a form
over-used these days). They are all worth reading.
The poems are accessible (which is not to say they're simple - they're not), and won't
trip you up with obscure classical references and abstruse philosophical debate. They're
also very varied in subject and treatment - she's a very versatile poet.
So I liked the poems. A lot. If I have a quibble - call it a quibble-ette - it's with the
book design. The cover is dull and uninspiring. More important, too many of her
long lines run over into a single word on the the next line, and that's even with
very narrow left-hand margins. It looks ragged. A larger page size would have
solved the problem.
It's picky, I know, but the look of a book is important.
***
The Great Modern Poets; an anthology of poets and poetry since 1900, edited
by Michael Schmidt. Quercus, £14.99
This is a book which looks very handsome indeed, but it has some unconventional
design features too. Normally, the verso of the title page contains publication
information, copyright and CIP details, address of the publisher etc. Not here,
it just goes into a table of contents. I suppose I'm talking as an ex-librarian, but
I found it odd.
What's the book about then? Well, for each of the fifty poets selected Schmidt
(Professor of Poetry at Glasgow and director of Carcanet), provides a photo,
a well-written introduction and commentary, and a selection of two or three
poems.
I found his selection, both of poets and of poems, exemplary. It contains
almost all of the poets I'd expect to see in a 'Best 50' list of 20th century
poets. The layout and typography are clear, and Schmidt's essays, while
concise, are very readable.
I'd guess that the book is aimed at those who don't know much about
modern poetry but feel they ought to, and I'm very glad that Michael
has written it. No-one else, I feel has the encyclopaedic knowledge and
acute critical sense needed for a project of this kind. Now I know which
book
to recommend to my non-poet friends when they ask me what
they should read.
Colin Will