Philip Mead
There’s a poem that begins
But that other wreck, where the crew tumbles out of a bad dream
and into a worldwide storm of interpretation.
Life is inhearsed, everything’s on affective hold for an hour
as the heavens pause. A melancholy playlist is blinking its lights.
It was the time when the awful narrative of their journey
was lost at sea, the violence of the weather and the politics
of humans and demi-gods all cast into the deep.
... (read more)What the authors of these three wildly different books share is a gift for creating through language a kind of intimacy of presence, as though they were in the room with you. Emily Wilson’s much-awaited translation of The Iliad (W.W. Norton & Company) is a gorgeous, hefty hardback with substantial authorial commentary that manages to be both scholarly and engaging. The poem is translated into effortless-looking blank verse that reads like music. The Running Grave (Sphere) by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling), the seventh novel in the Cormoran Strike crime series and one of the best so far, features Rowling’s gift for the creation of memorable characters and a cracking plot about a toxic religious cult. Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional (Allen & Unwin, reviewed in this issue of ABR) lingers in the reader’s mind, with the haunting grammar of its title, the restrained artistry of its structure, and the elusive way that it explores modes of memory, grief, and regret.
... (read more)Déjà Rêvé, a new poem by Philip Mead.
... (read more)I thought I recognised Sorley Maclean / walking towards me down Niagara Lane. / As he came alongside he said look up, / you can see our friend the sky where the tall buildings / lean in towards each other. I can see some glyphs
... (read more)