Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Thursday 29 October 2009

"Paraphernalia" by Joanne Limburg (Bloodaxe, 2007)

Lots of variety formally - "Not a Love Poem" is a sonnet; "Paraphernalia" is a paragraph/list; "Late" is a sestina, and there are 7 ghazals (I think "Water's" the most successful of them). There's variety along the accessibility spectrum too. My most common reaction was that too many poems were like those that appear at workshops I attend - successful enough, but not more than magazine pieces. I think I've seen poems quite a lot like "Himself", "Humpty Dumpty" and "Computer" before. "Entrenchment" and "Ghost Beach" are too ordinary for me. "Annus mirabilis", "On Inadvertently Locking Eyes ..." and "The Disputed History ..." appealed to me.

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