Poems from Rialto, Under the Radar, etc.
I made the mistake of buying this without having a preview of the contents first. Silly me. The first poem, "Palace", has lines that are indented with 0-3 tabs - the 1st line 1 tab, the 2nd 2, the 3rd 1. The full pattern is 12121200132213. The ending is "Palace: this is your ghost,/ your not-music". I don't get it.
"Walks" comprises asterisk-separated short sections of higglety-pigglety fragments ("birdcalls overlapping, like trees" ... "a door opens and shuts on a child singing/ ladder rattle bluebell"). There might be a theme of Nature not responding to a plea.
"The Landfill Oracle" is 20 wide lines of accessible, eco-aware poetry. I like "The Lift" but definitely not the 14 page "Transit". "3rd Person Beautiful" is a sestina with a difference. The final stanza is
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She is a beautiful girl. She is a beautiful girl.She is a beautiful girl. She is a beautiful girl.She is a beautiful girl. |
The repeated words are "She", "is", "a", "beautiful", "beautiful", "girl". In 4 places there are wrong words at the ends of lines. These are crossed out. "Ugly Questions" is 30 lines long and uses "ugly" about 30 times, ending with How do ugly people find love?. I don't understand 'Trick or Treat'.
"5 Nights" and "5 Postcards" and several others are list poems. Get some fragments, sprinkle white-space on them and voilà!
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