Scan barcode
A review by sydsnot71
Sonnets for Albert: Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry 2022 by Anthony Joseph
4.0
This collection started as a streamed event with an improvised soundtrack - if that's the right word. It is a collection of poems about his mostly absent father whose pictures are scattered throughout the collection.
It begins with his father's death in he poem 'Breath':
"When I hear my father dead,
I flew ten hours into the sun."
And death and dying are a part of this collection. Death, family, memory and fatherhood. A couple of the poems touch on Joseph's own role as a father.
It's a fine collection. It made me think about my Dad, even though he is very different to Joseph's father. The mortality of our parents is something we all understand, but which we never really want to think about. It feels to me that this collection is, perhaps, part of Joseph's mourning. A way to deal with loss and to try and understand his own past. But perhaps I am reading too much into it.
Worth reading.
It begins with his father's death in he poem 'Breath':
"When I hear my father dead,
I flew ten hours into the sun."
And death and dying are a part of this collection. Death, family, memory and fatherhood. A couple of the poems touch on Joseph's own role as a father.
It's a fine collection. It made me think about my Dad, even though he is very different to Joseph's father. The mortality of our parents is something we all understand, but which we never really want to think about. It feels to me that this collection is, perhaps, part of Joseph's mourning. A way to deal with loss and to try and understand his own past. But perhaps I am reading too much into it.
Worth reading.