Some Modern New Poets

Catching up with recent poetry publications is always a lesson in contingency. Some poets–in the cases of John Wilkinson and Peter Gizzi–have published again since September, outdating the books closest to my chair. Some books only came to my attention once summer was already over. There are many poets that I simply haven't got to. And yet there might be a mercy in these accidents: reading somewhat haphazardly allows one to draw up a bad map of the contemporary landscape, one which can be built upon in the months to come. Of the many symbols that might appear in the legend of that map, a poem's proximity to or distance from provinces of the poetic repertoire which might be thought of as traditional (such as fixed form, metre, and rhyme) has been a constant point of reference.

The last four Faber New Poets–until further notice–are moving in decidedly various directions. Elaine Beckett (no. 13) has some well-turned anecdotes. Her response to Blackfish–the 2013 documentary film about Sea World–is funny. Her poem 'Sometime this Month' is in a different mode, a traditional song celebrating the blossoming of a certain tree in May, strong enough to bear updating to take in the teenagers on their lunch break. Crispin Best's pamphlet (no. 14) is whimsical and witty in equal measure ('I'm an optimist | that's what I like about you'). There are some clever reversals in syntax here–'remember science is always doing something that we don't understand to the sky'–and deft repetition which makes for pop music. Yet this pamphlet remains awkwardly placed between satire and lyric, without striking a compromise. Sam Buchan-Watts (no. 15) has a knack for the poem as prose-vignette–a dangerous task, since it risks collapsing into a case of the young poet looking at stuff. Yet here are several successful pieces in the tradition of Woolf's shorts or Stein's early prose poetry, particularly his 'study of two lamps and a painting'. 'The Days go Just Like that' and the following poem (the same title, held within quotation marks) are the best achieved in this collection, managing the relation between line and sense-unit flawlessly, as a stumbling consciousness awakes, emerging from a wood to look for the city. Rachel Curzon's poems (no. 16) are most effective where most elliptical and epigrammatic. Tending towards the confessional mode, Curzon's first pamphlet is more striking when it is less particular. Her simplistic diction is understated, and this is crucial to the comedy of the attack on middle-class aspiration in 'Ultrasound'. However, this becomes more dangerous once the poems move to consider questions of motherhood, personhood, and ownership ('The Catch').

The new Penguin Modern Poets series has produced two beautiful...