I've been making headway into some of the poetry books I purchased back in September, having now read the ones from Daljit Nagra, Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie. There's lots to like about all three, reinforcing my sense that we live in a golden age for lyric verse, but it was Ms Oswald's Dart that had the greatest impact. Funnily enough this was the book I had the highest expectations of, though I'd never heard of the writer before - but the idea of a sequence that followed the river (the River Dart in Devon) from source to sea, and captured the voices of those associated with it, making them part of the river's own monologue, struck me as so obvious yet original that I just knew it was going to work. And it did, but at an extraordinarily high level. Think Hughes, think Heaney. Seriously, she's that good. I want to read the whole thing again and soon.
Tippoo Sultan's Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! delivered pretty much what the title, with its three exclamation marks promises. Lots of energy, inventive playfulness, edgy perspectives. In comparison, Ms Jamie's The Overhaul felt restrained, almost muted, even though language was being stretched again with the Scots element involved. There's room for both approaches, of course, assuming the course taken is true to what the writer needs to say; but I must say I like a bit of showmanship in my poets. I suppose this is an age when there's sometimes a need to be loud to be heard.
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