jenvcampbell's review
4.0
This is a really quirky poetry pamphlet. My favourite of the lot is a poem called 'Wasp.' Here's a snippet:
...little yellow-black armadillo.
little snail-slime wings.
little nuzzler, nuzzling a neck.
little alien, little feeler, little zebra.
little dinosaur legs...
How can you not fall in love with lines like that? My second favourite is the first poem, 'my grandfather considers his life in three stages' with beautiful phrases such as 'Everything simmered / small fires hopped from place to place / like rabbits from hutch to hutch. He never fired a gun. / At night, counting flaming sheep, thought of his wife / at home heating the house with coals. The poems themselves have wonderful titles: 'Namgalsipschlar' 'hello, little bird' 'what is the most shop-lifted book in the world?' and 'when the wind full of space wears out of faces' with the great first line: 'i: breathe your lungs out into the air / maybe the birds will feel the expansion of it.' This collection has umbrellas as bats, street lamps as beast eyes and a man in the moon. 'The air is doing nothing / so the bare trees look like / frozen fireworks.' Just lovely.
...little yellow-black armadillo.
little snail-slime wings.
little nuzzler, nuzzling a neck.
little alien, little feeler, little zebra.
little dinosaur legs...
How can you not fall in love with lines like that? My second favourite is the first poem, 'my grandfather considers his life in three stages' with beautiful phrases such as 'Everything simmered / small fires hopped from place to place / like rabbits from hutch to hutch. He never fired a gun. / At night, counting flaming sheep, thought of his wife / at home heating the house with coals. The poems themselves have wonderful titles: 'Namgalsipschlar' 'hello, little bird' 'what is the most shop-lifted book in the world?' and 'when the wind full of space wears out of faces' with the great first line: 'i: breathe your lungs out into the air / maybe the birds will feel the expansion of it.' This collection has umbrellas as bats, street lamps as beast eyes and a man in the moon. 'The air is doing nothing / so the bare trees look like / frozen fireworks.' Just lovely.
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