Poems from PN Review, Stand, etc. – 9 years of poems. 148 pages. Not to my taste - too much staccato word association. Here are examples of what puzzles me - syntax, semantics, form, etc.
- It was surely destined crass or sweet/ to be running through memories/ of art exhibitions (p.4)
- Language/ just goes on faster/ than light through mountains,/ quickest neutrinos/ loving safety’s home. (p.8)
- "Bed-time" is 16 couplets. 30 of the lines have 5 syllables. Lines 3 and 23 don't. The next poem, "Wrapped up" has 17 couplets, with a more ruthless dedication to having 5 syllables/line. There's "greener-/y", "disson-/ance," etc., but the penultimate line is "marginal defiance" . 6 syllables. Why?
- A landscape darling bereft./ I went for it like sunlight.// Sun-tan flatline message/ schooling a metaphor's blast whilst sickening for something (p.29)
- Pick the true digits for their smell,/ stinks right for birds or whale breath (p.39)
- Extraordinary fames, sad folios,/ I'm there again, resenting Samson/ Agonistes' GM crops. Ink, black ink, weighs/ words at a perfect force to be sewn. (p.93)
I like "Canals"
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