"Of all places" by John McAuliffe (The Gallery Press, 2011)

I'm having trouble getting into these - they're often too dead-pan until the punchline. It's perhaps unfair to quote out of context - the lines might have a delayed, subtle impact - but this is sort of gentle build-up I mean

A dry spell engenders nostalgia for rain. The news will consider the negligent doctor and who is immune to the variant strain. (p.12)

A Mountain Road The visitor explained how to make 'A Mountain Road': as in the original, a line of sea, the road and fields, which some of us personalized. His had a black hill, which those without black paint painted a very dark green. (p.16)

Let the books outstay their return date. Let it be said that we are sleeping late. Let the garden continue to grow more like a dump. Let the room go round this mid-season slump. (p.33)

observe the stupid fox contend with a bin, the earthbound worm co-operate with the micro-managing magpie (p.65)

There's imagery but little compression - "The foxgloves corked with bees" (p.68) is about as tight as it gets. More often the imagery is commonplace or leisurely - "rusty trees", "Soot gathers at the bottom like cornflakes/ left over in the cereal box" (p.55). However I like "poking the coals into a black on black jigsaw puzzle,/ practising how to whistle and piece things together" (p.55).

Several of the poems are sonnets, or in rhyming couplets, abab stanzas, or abba stanzas, though the line-lengths aren't always very disciplined. "Canvas" may be a comment on Art Criticism. It sounds like found prose. "Marriage, the Realist Tradition" is my favorite.

Other reviews

• Thomas McCarthy (Southword)
• Jane Aspinall