Tag: poetry

Two Men In Love (I Didn’t Know You Were That Black): Rahsaan Patterson’s music album Wines & Spirits; and Jericho Brown’s poetry book Please

What separates human accomplishment and failure? In the slinky, seductive “No Danger,” using rhythm as a sign or symbol of desire, Rahsaan Patterson describes love as protection against the cruelty of indifference; but in the song that follows, with a theme of unhappiness, “Pitch Black,” a cross of rock and funk, featuring Patterson’s low voice, a fat slow beat, and guitar feedback, there are “pitch black panic attacks.”

A review of First Light by Kate Fagan

The grammatical syntax is also inflected, though not enough to lose the coherency. Instead, the conjunction of familiarity and distortion provides a cognitive dissonance that, mingled with the lovely imagery, is simultaneously pleasing and intellectually tricky.

A review of Life on Mars by Tracy K Smith

At the heart of Smith’s everyday experience is an expansiveness that calls to mind the universal. Life on Mars is an extraordinary collection that will no doubt draw new readers, intrigued by what poetry is able to achieve. Life on Mars’ rich tapestry traverses a broad spectrum of modern experience, linking pop-culture to science and the geography of human pain, forgiveness and transcendence.

A review of Lines for Birds by Barry Hill and John Wolseley

While poetry may be worked and rewritten and sculpted, the ‘poems’ from birds are more spontaneous, ‘lines that arrive’, as the birds appear and disappear themselves, according to mating, food, seasons. They produce their own works of art in song, and in themselves, without the accoutrements of human production.

A review of Urban Biology by Ian Gibbins

It is in the extended anthropomorphism of animals where Gibbins’ work really shines. My favourite poem in the collection remains “Field Guide”, where the a range of creatures are allowed to express themselves in such a poignant way that their unique essential characteristics are illuminated at the same time as they highlight something utterly relevant to the human condition.

A review of Fabric by Jessica Bell

Jessica Bell’s Fabric is a rich collection of poems that take the reader on a deep tour of the psyche. Charting and moving across politics of language, Bell explores love, pain, failure and redemption from a variety of angles. Most of the poems sit at the fragile threshold of instinct and meaning, using symbol and sensation to get to the shock of denouement.

A review of Curses and Wishes by Carl Adamshick

Regardless of topic, from war, oyster bars, junk yards, to fluency, the reader never finds a word out of place, over frilly phrases or rigid format. Instead, the poet offers clear language, with specificity of detail and style that meets the needs of the poem.

A review of Prayers waiting for God by David Barnes

The blurb on the back says it all: “This is David Barnes’ first and last book.” That David ever came to be a poet is a kind of miracle in itself. He’s an unlikely candidate. A ward of the state, placed in institutions and physically and sexually abused – there was little likelihood that he would become a functioning adult, let alone a loving one who could have a happy relationship, a much-loved son a self-deprecating sense of humour – or a writing career.

A review of Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein

I’ve always found the term ‘experimental literature’ to be unsatisfactory, since it begs so many questions. For a start, what hypothesis is being tested? Then again, how would you know that the experiment – if such it is – has been successful? Only if the hypothesis has been confirmed? Yet what if the experiment had done its job, by providing a rigorous trial?