Antler by John Clegg

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 *

John Clegg grew up in Cambridge and currently lives in Durham, where he is completing a PhD on the Eastern European influence in contemporary poetry. A selection of his poetry was included in The Salt Book of Younger Poets (2010).

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.