"The Canary's Songbook" by Karen Press (Carcanet 2005)

Poems from PN Review, etc

I'm having trouble liking or understanding the poems. I think I understand some lines, but I don't like all of them

• "Broken bits of the past/ find their way into my pockets// bright as the eyes of stray dogs,/ pleading and fierce" (p.11)
• "The smoky scent of bodies juicing each other/ and the slow reach of a tongue/ into the folds of warmth - / salt lives here, and the softest skin.// It is always dark/ where bodies join so completely" (p.39)
• "Something rearranged the coal dust of our souls/ so that we could have the momentary radiance of flowers,/ and become rubies more precious than blood" (p.43)
• "Each uprising a voice from deep space,/ the prime numbers of humanity beamed in our direction/ from the ones who lived it fully, briefly/ in a distant universe.// Their signal was switched on there/ and it keeps travelling" (p.88)
• "the sea in its own silent movie/ throwing up waves, catching them in its blue arms" (p.95)

I most liked "In Jakob's house" which is over 3 pages long.