Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Poetry and its others

by
August 2006, no. 283

Microtexts by Martin Langford

Island Press, $21.95 pb, 93 pp

Poetry and its others

by
August 2006, no. 283

Microtexts (Island Press, $21.95 pb, 93 pp) is a set of aphoristic prose pieces grouped under the following chapter headings: ‘Poetry and the Narrative of the Self’; ‘Poetry and Poetics’; ‘Writing’; ‘Art’; ‘Reading’; ‘Critics and Criticism’. It is not academic literary theory, but personal and professional musings by a poet with five collections to his credit. Martin Langford’s poetry adopts a lyric voice which, to my ear, sounds variations on the ground-bass of a slightly lugubrious, melancholy tone. It is idiosyncratic and not unpleasant: ‘time we outwitted / behaviour, the sad primate life’ (from his poem ‘Lake Coila’).

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.