E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Jessica Mayhew reviews Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds , winner of the 2012 TS Eliot Prize Arranged chronologically, Stag’s Leap begins at the instant, ‘While He Told Me.’ Here, the poet’s clear gaze is drawn to the minutiae of separation, from the face of the bedroom clock, to the ‘cindery lichen skin’ of her husband’s chest (‘While He Told Me’). This immediately situates these poems in the everyday, a world that seems unbearably familiar, and yet distant. Olds writes of how her husband wakes early on the morning after, and goes to read on the sofa: as he often did, and in a while I followed him, as I often had,   and snoozed on him... (‘While He Told Me’) In the repetitions of Olds’ explanations of their actions, the reader can feel the pain of being forced to confront and unlearn the routines of a marriage. These lines have a sense of delay, showing the poet’s attempt at adjustment. Later in the collection, ‘Tiny Siren’ examin...

Jessica Mayhew reviews Charms against Lightning by James Arthur   James Arthur is quoted on the cover of this collection as saying, ‘I love writing about places, but only places where I don’t belong,’ and this sense of dislocation permeates the entire collection. ‘Charms Against Lightning’ rhythmically catalogues fears: Against lupus and lawsuits, lying stranded between nations, against secrets and frostbite, the burring of trains that never arrive   (‘Charms Against Lightning’) The delayed syntax lurches towards fears that never come true, until the lightning finally cracks: ...the shutters swing, and clack their yellow teeth; the deep sky welters and the windows quiver (‘Charms Against Lightning’) Here, the root of the unease materialises and shatters, leaning towards the Romantic Sublime. The lack of final punctuation means that it flows straight into rest of the collection, just with a slight pause like the ...

Jessica Mayhew reviews Future Blues   by Michael S. Begnal Beginning at the end of this collection, Michael Begnal notes the poet’s refusal “to fix ourselves/ in time or ink” (‘Manifesto’), and this would serve just as well as an epigram to Future Blues . This is a collection aware of the fragility and harshness of time and language, and a refusal to be rooted in the stasis of either. Begnal’s poetry is fluid and immediate, and his use of textual play allows it to slip from being pinned to the formal. In ‘Primates,’ Begnal explores the “conception of the word/ HUMAN.” This poem examines a photograph of a group of chimpanzees, comparing it to an early-morning glimpse of the self in a mirror, “a face so secretly and fiercely familiar,” which readers will be able to wryly identify with. However, this poem also goes much deeper than the “3:10 A.M” stunned and squinting eyes, and the knowing nudges of aging; the parallels drawn between poem and chimp highlight the “iron l...