tower poetry reviews 2004–2014 tower poetry reviews 2004–2014 Selected and introduced by Peter McDonald 2015 CONTENTS The views expressed by each reviewer Peter McDonald Introduction 1 are not those of Tower Poetry, or of Christ Church, Oxford, Matthew Sperling John Fuller, Ghosts 7 and are solely those of the reviewers. Olivia Cole Alan Jenkins, A Shorter Life 11 Alan Gillis David Herd, Mandelson! Mandelson! A Memoir 14 Frances Leviston Lucy Newlyn, Ginnel 19 Fiona Sampson U.A. Fanthorpe, Collected Poems 1978–2003 22 Mishtooni Bose Helen Farish, Intimates 26 Frances Leviston Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture 29 April Warman Geoffrey Hill, Without Title 32 Stephen Burt Seamus Heaney, District and Circle 36 Peter McDonald Simon Armitage, Tyrannosaurus Rex versus The Corduroy Kid 40 Jeremy Noel-Tod Paul Farley, Tramp in Flames 46 Matthew Sperling Charles Tomlinson, Cracks in the Universe 50 John Redmond Marilyn Hacker, Essays on Departure 54 Fran Brearton Paul Muldoon, Horse Latitudes 58 Stephen Burt Louise Glück, Averno 65 Tim Kendall David Wheatley, Mocker 69 April Warman John Burnside, Gift Songs 73 Mishtooni Bose Ian Duhig, The Speed of Dark 77 Matthew Sperling Fiona Sampson, Common Prayer 81 Alan Gillis Nick Laird, On Purpose 86 Peter McDonald Alan Gillis, Hawks and Doves 91 Jane Griffiths Frances Leviston, Public Dream 96 C.E.J. Simons Simon Armitage (trs), The Death of King Arthur 223 Anna Lewis Ciaran Carson, For All We Know 100 Peter McDonald Geoffrey Hill, Clavics and Odi Barbare 232 Simon Pomery Michael Hofmann, Selected Poems 104 David Wheatley Fiona Sampson, Beyond the Lyric: A Map of John Lyon Mick Imlah, The Lost Leader and Robert Contemporary British Poetry 240 Crawford, Full Volume 108 Stephen Romer Clive James, Nefertiti in the Flak Tower 250 Vidyan Ravinthiran Colette Bryce, Self-Portrait in the Dark 114 Richard O’Brien Caroline Bird, The Hat-Stand Union 260 Miriam Gamble Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Not in Tess Somervell Tara Bergin, This is Yarrow 265 These Shoes 119 Steven McGregor Kevin Powers, Letter Composed During a Lull Nicholas Pierpan Mark Doty, Theories and Apparitions 125 in the Fighting 270 Fran Brearton Leontia Flynn, Drives 131 Matthew Sperling Simon Armitage, Paper Aeroplane: Selected C.E.J. Simons Alice Oswald, Weeds and Wild Flowers 137 Poems 1989–2014 274 Miriam Gamble Jane Draycott, Over 150 Paul Batchelor Robin Robertson, Sailing the Forest: Selected Poems 278 Jane Holland Billy Collins, Ballistics 157 William Wootten John Ashbery, Planisphere 161 Peter McDonald Christopher Ricks, True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht, and Robert Lowell Under the Sign of Eliot and Pound 166 Maria Johnston Seamus Heaney, Human Chain 171 Sarah Bennett Paul Muldoon, Maggot 180 Chloe Stopa-Hunt David Harsent, Night 186 David Wheatley Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, Edgelands: Journeys into England’s True Wilderness and Harriet Tarlo (ed) The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry 191 Vidyan Ravinthiran Bernard O’Donoghue, Farmers Cross 204 Maria Johnston Sean O’Brien, November 210 Tess Somervell Roddy Lumsden and Eloise Stonborough (eds),The Salt Book of Younger Poets 218 peter mcdonald Introduction Reviewing contemporary poetry is no easy matter; and I, for one, can think of no universal formula for how it is best done. Maybe, indeed, it is best not done at all. The problems are varied, for no two collections strike out in quite the same directions, and no two poets (good, bad, or indifferent) operate in exactly the same ways. Nevertheless, one difficulty for a reviewer is so huge that it is almost impossible to face squarely, let alone to solve: the audience for a review of contemporary poetry is not only tiny by comparison with that for other kinds of writing, but also made up largely of other poets. Maybe, then, not as tiny as all that, for there are really quite a few of these. And poets – as literary history, not to mention common sense, should tell us – are not signed up to many disinterested conceptions of literary culture and critical discussion. They are, on the contrary, interested in often the most heated and intense ways: as vigilant guardians of their own art and its aesthetic (if we want to put it grandly), or as querulous and thin-skinned careerists (if we prefer – and I don’t recommend this – a blunter way of putting things). By and large, nobody listens to things like poetry reviews apart from other poets, and those involved in the forever failing, but quietly heroic cottage-industry of its production and promotion. The exercise of 1 critical judgement (and again, that might be too grand an expression) witnessed more than a quarter-century of its failure); and in truth the does not take place on any wide field of engagement, with important problem is nothing so innocent as a lack of interest: it is at best things at stake; rather, as has been said before, it is more like a knife- passive dislike, and at worst principled antipathy directed against fight in a phone box – intimate, cramped, and unlikely to end well. the kind of poetry promoted by people whose interests are (often Everybody gets hurt. rather visibly) vested ones. None of this matters very much – as far as Now, this seems an extraordinarily negative note to be sounding I know, it doesn’t stop good new poetry being written, published, or at the beginning of a collection of reviews of poetry from the last ten enjoyed – but it does mean that the possibilities for alert, engaged, years. Shouldn’t the other side of the coin be shown first? After all, a and stimulating criticism of new collections in the public sphere critic’s judgement might as well – might better, really – run to appre- become both fewer and more circumscribed. Immediately, I think ciation as to dislike; that way, certainly, nobody will suffer harm. And of certain reviewers and platforms as exceptions to this rule; still, I this is true; I myself, as a critic, try nowadays only to write when I am believe, they are just that – exceptions. being spurred on by a genuine admiration for the poems in front of So, to the present small collection of reviews. Since 2005, Tower my nose. Naturally, I would like to be able to appreciate more of what Poetry’s website has hosted reviews of new volumes of verse (along I encounter, and I’d be the first to concede that my failure to do so with very occasional reviews of books about poetry). By no means isn’t necessarily the poetry’s fault. For appreciation is one of the everything has been covered: 126 reviews over a decade isn’t all highest skills in criticism, and one of the rarest: it is worth aspiring to. that many – and even this just-better-than-one-a-month figure fails There is a difference, though, between appreciation and approval, just to take account of the numerous months in which no new reviews as there is a divide between literary criticism and promotional copy. were appearing. If not quite haphazard, the coverage was not (let’s Much of what passes for critical discussion of contemporary poetry say) carefully planned. Even so, one ambition of the Tower reviews is (and for some time has been) merely a form of recommendation, section was to find some of the best reviewers – often, but by no one that tends to the hyperbolic. I do not believe that reviewing means always, younger poets – and to give them the freedom to write should be a form of professional networking; but I have to acknowl- what they liked about new books of poetry. Nobody was told what edge that here the facts are against me. In time, all the hyperbole to approve or disapprove, or taken to task editorially for what they proves corrosive: it should be no surprise that, the higher the volume had written. Perhaps as a result of this, Tower hosted some exception- of praise from reviewers and prize juries, directed in predictable ways ally interesting and searching pieces of criticism over the ten years, to a consistently small circle of predictable names, the less a general and provided a platform on which a number of emerging critical reading public feels inclined to tolerate contemporary poetry. talents could find their feet. It is customary to lament this supposed lack of interest in poetry, One problem about reviews as a literary form is that people tend as though, somehow, the right kind of positive messaging from to simplify them on sight, so that they can become only one of two poetry-recommenders could put it right. It can’t, of course (I have things: ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Actually, many of the best reviews (whether on 2 3 Tower or elsewhere) are more complicated than that; but it is the criticism, to be up to the minute than up to scratch. Proliferation and ‘good’ or the ‘bad’ label, and nothing much else, that gets remem- freedom are not the same. bered. So, one of the nuggets of received wisdom in the British poetry I should add that the measure of freedom Tower has enjoyed has world is that Tower has given more than its share of ‘bad’ reviews, not been won without a price; and, indeed, that such freedom cannot often to the kinds of poet who never (in the usual course of things) maintain itself indefinitely. I’m sure my own role as director of Tower are subject to any kind of ‘bad’ reception. Reading through all of our over the years has occasioned some of this (nothing edited by me, reviews for the purpose of making this selection, though, I have indeed, could ever expect the approval of influential poetry-figures been struck by two things: first, that there are far fewer ‘bad’ reviews who have kept me very fully appraised of their intense and bitter than that particular myth supposes; and second, that any negative enmity, occasioned by, yes, my own reviewing from longer than judgements made have been backed up by illustrations and detailed a decade ago).