Antler by John Clegg
Pared-down, playful and often very funny, Cleggs poetry keeps faith with what is tactile and tangible (moss, leather, bone), distilling plainspoken diction, luminous imagery and a unique worldview into lines which remain in the head for a long while after the book has been closed.Clegg mixes "genuine and imaginary anthropology", and the join between those aspects of his work that are essentially tall tales or fabulation and those that the results of diligent research is practically invisibleSo too is the transition between tightly controlled traditional form and ranging free verse, the former being done so softly and unostentatiously. A quick march through some of the titles (’Moss’, ‘Nightgrass’, ‘Wounded Musk Ox’, ‘Kayaks’, ‘Meteor’, ‘Dill’, ‘Mosquito’) reads like a sort of ingredients list – words as ancient elements, boiled down tinctures, excavated knucklebones and panned nuggets, bottled and labelled for cautious use in the creation of spells and medicines. Plus there's the over-arching sensation of the poet's joyous obsessiveness, like a child collecting shells or insects, in everything he writes about.
So yeah, yeah, I recommend it.
-- Jon Stone * Sidekick Books *| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781844719648 |
| ISBN 10 | 1844719642 |
| Title | Antler |
| Author | John Clegg |
| Series | Salt Modern Poets |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Salt Publishing |
| Year published | 2013-07-25 |
| Number of pages | 80 |
| Prizes | Winner of The Eric Gregory Trust Fund Awards 2013 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |