Poems from "Barren Magazine", "Ink, Sweat and Tears", "Magma", etc.
The poems suit my tastes - discontinuous, with gaps neither too big or small; subject matter that isn't the be all and end all. Several poems involve the process of close study, as if looking at something behind glass - in a museum or gallery; pinned down, excavated, or a memory. There are 2 pages of notes.
I like "We don't need infinity". I think "Milk bottle" is neat - "... pressing the silver coin down ... Above me, the fat-rimmed lip of the bottle ... I have been taught not to answer back, not to question the world of empty men, tight-necked, stout-shouldered ...I silence them with a rolled-up scroll, filled with my very best handwriting"
p.49 is a Golden Shovel. p.50 is a sonnet - loose rhythm and rhyme that become looser. "Aftersun" (another sonnet) is about helping someone who has sunburn, but the language is very flowery ("Space-travelling light has tangled too deep, entered your body, turned cool-water skin into a forge ... there's nothing I can do to unblemish this") so I presume it's about something else too - "I promise you next time we'll be more careful". I like "Picking Raspberries" - "Sometimes I'd find a perfect pink chandelier ... as soon as I eased it away, I'd be left with a tiny orgasm of jam that couldn't wait any longer ... absurdity of soft hair". And "I remember that I too, have seen a bat crawl by morning light" works for me - "mouse-body hidden by the funeral-circus tents she was hauling"
There are scattered images I like too - e.g. "my heart stupid as a lamppost, waiting for you underneath it every night" ("Wardrobe"). Less convincing are p.36, p.40, p.59.
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