Scott Hamilton has reviewed my chapbook over at Scoop Review of Books, alonside Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming:Poems 1959-2008 (Meritage 2008). If the company wasn't enough, Scott's reading picks up on things others have missed, nameley the presence of Swinburne (who He describes as "rotten-ripe" - true enough, I suppose), and more so Gerard Manley Hopkins. (I also have a weakness for Robert Browning - see Susan Howe's reading of "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" in My Emily Dickenson).
I really apreciate Scott's generous and honest reading.
Mark Young edits Otoliths, and has been good enough to publish some of my work.
SONGS OF MIRABAI ~
4 hours ago
3 comments:
You're right, this is a great review--I like this part especially:
"Reading the poems in A Pelt A Shrub A Soil Sample is like picking through the burnt-out ruins of a grand old house, and finding occasional, sadly evocative objects – a worn wedding ring, an old photograph seared at the edges – amidst the ashes."
I also thought of Hopkins while reading your work--he was one of the poets I had to read very closely as an undergrad--but I have to disagree that your poems sound like Hopkins with a lisp. I would argue for the opposite. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding what Hamilton means by lisp.
He might be talking about the large number of 'L' sounds there are in some of the poems - but then he qouted "Sibilance", which seems to subvert any lisping. but that's just nit-picking, when all is said and done. I also like the image of burn-out - I think it works better than "rotten-ripe" - there's a sort of archeology there.
Congrats on the review - I agree that it's a good one.
Childe Harold and Hopkins - brings back memories of the Victorian Poetry and Prose course I did at uni which was one of the best. Even if it's "unfashionable now" as the review seemed to suggest I think the Victorian era was a very innovative time for poetry.
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