"The purpose of your visit" by River Wolton (Smith/Doorstop, 2008)

The first poem, "Thrill" is classic "anecdote becomes metaphor". Canoeing together amongst alligators, there's "the thrill: of comradeship, or proving all the voices wrong, and ridges of relentless hidden teeth". The second poem, "Reconciliation", mentions a crow bashing against a window, then says that the narrator no longer cares about the possessions that characterise her, because when there's a reconciliation - "All I know is that they fell away like ballast on a balloon flight, like the first step weightless and exultant into air". In "Gold", the persona seems to be floundering around, looking for something - anything - to believe in after a relationship's over, finishing with "You think of taking up smoking again but even that old god is good and dead".

Some later poems are more oblique - initially at least. Often a memory is described, then the persona's current surroundings are revealed (a train station, for example) then a connection is made between the two, or, more rarely, the juxtaposed descriptions are left to speak for themselves. There's a "scattering ashes" poem. I like "Sheffield - St Pancras".

Towards the end, the topics of immigration and Israel take over. The style becomes close to reportage - poems (poems?) like "Departures 4.30 A.M." don't do much for me.

Other reviews

• Rob A. Mackenzie (She employs plain vocabulary, free verse, and a fairly regular stanza and line length within each poem. There’s little new ground being broken, but the poems generally succeed in achieving their intended effect, which is rarely disguised.)