Before our holiday last week I was inspired to order a batch of poetry books from Salt (superficially to support their Just One Book campaign, but really just to indulge in a shopping spree for good contemporary poetry. They have a huge backlist, which can at first sight seem somewhat disorientating – where do you start if you’re just a hobby reader? – but really you can just close your eyes and click and add to the shopping cart. Anyway, I picked up the parcel from the post office on Monday and I just wanted to flag the books, because, rather than dipping in and out as I usually do the first week to get a feel for a poetry collection, I have been immersed in them and have nearly finished them all. The great thing about reading poetry is of course that you far sooner get a sense of completion as you don’t have to trudge through four hundred pages of dense text as is the case with novels.
Anyway, poetry books devoured this week: The Word For Sorrow by Josephine Balmer, Fetch by Tamar Yoseloff and Down To Earth by John Wilkinson. I also – with apprehension – ordered Fiona Sampson’s essay collection On Listening, but which proved to be a very enjoyable and infectious collection of criticism. really opening up the contemporary poetry world in relatively short, but profound chapters. The opening chapter on poet-critics immediately draws you in making the case from scratch for the justified eminence of such contemporary poets as Sean O’ Brien, Ruth Padel and John Kinsella. Anybody with a faint interest in poetry has probably read them or at least heard of them, but it’s nice to read why a fellow great contemporary poet like Fiona Sampson appreciates their work so much. Highly recommended.
