Review written by Michelle Moloney King
Is a hybrid text and a sort of behind the scenes of poetics unfurling? An interesting take on a poet’s notebook merged in a collection of polished poems with a postmodern vibe yet a surrealist written form – as if describing popping thoughts, imagened images or the world but tilted. Jarring and detailed in the poet’s journey from inner self to actualised words on a page.
This collection even includes a self conducted interview along with images from the poet’s own diaries or notebooks, they have an almost asemic look to them due to the scrawl of the handwriting so rather that reading for direct interpretation I glanced at the shapes on the images and made my own meaning. Projecting my own frantic notes onto the images…it’s dinner time, why is my toddler watching cartoons and not eating the dinner I left in fridge, I must log off, ugh another email looking for another email or a pedestrian meeting about a meeting…
The title poem is laid out with time entries at the start of each line – the timetable of a poet? Of someone’s life? What role does that invite us to accept..should we enter the room and witness or quietly shut the door and move on? That’s for us to decide.
How can one learn more about life then by distancing oneself from the subject to become the subjective….take away from that what you want. I have no interest in telling you what I think or giving you a neat ending to the review: But I will say this – I appreciate the structure of it and the space it gave me to project myself into it.
Cover art is by James Knight, we know Knight from his work via Beir Bua Press. Published by Anvil Tongue Books
It’s dinner time and my toddler needs his dinner heated up – laters. Michelle
Beir Bua Press 