I finished Robert Crawford’s Full Volume tonight, which I enjoyed. Earlier in the day, Simon Barraclough’s debut collection, Los Alamos Mon Amour, arrived in the post. I haven’t had time yet to take a look, but I might read a few poems now.
I sent off my entry for this year’s Poetry on the Lake Competition, to be judged by Jo Shapcott. Can’t say anything more about it as the poems are given to the judge without names on them.
I’m doing a short reading at the Tchai Ovna Café in the south side of Glasgow on Friday in the company of several other writers. I'll post more on this tomorrow.
6 comments:
I just got the Barraclough book too, Rob. Only had a quick flick through, but it looks great. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it.
Ah I wouldn't bother, it's rotten. All the hype made it sound like it was going to be a landmark collection but it was drab, uninspired, and all over the shop.
Yep, I'm very disappointed with it, having had a proper look.
Anonymous, I allow anons to comment (so that regular readers who don't have blogs can comment), but I don't like such comments if there's no name beside them. Especially if the opinions expressed are 'strong'.
In any case, calling SB's collection "rotten" seems grossly unfair to me. There are some very good poems in it and it's extremely well written. Hardly "rotten". I'd reserve words like that for books which really are bad.
I have various thoughts on the book, but they wouldn't fit in a comments box. I tried writing an Amazon review but deleted it about ten minutes after I'd written it. It didn't quite say what I wanted it to say. I'll try to get round to writing something about it, but probably not until July.
Matt, it will be interesting to see whether the things I liked and disliked about the book are mirrored in your opinions. At least the collection seems to generate strong reactions. Much better than generating a few shrugs!
I entirely agree with Rob. Although when I read it I found it left me with nothing residual. Technically the writing style was good enough, but I found it just a bit too clinical and dispassionate to move me. Couldn't get any emotion out of it. Meh. A shrug from me.
Another anon?
You know, I'm really suspicious when people choose to comment (negatively) on a book and don't give their name.
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