Review: Poetry Selection 2
From Planet 224


Planet 224

Frank Olding reviews
Scattered Light by Jeremy Hooker
Nobody’s Subject by Mike Jenkins
Masculine Happiness by David Foster-Morgan
A Crater the Size of Calcutta by Linda Lamus

Scattered Light, Enitharmon, £9.99
Nobody’s Subject, Createspace, £5.00
Masculine Happiness, Seren, £9.99
A Crater the Size of Calcutta, Mulfran, £9.00
 

Jeremy Hooker’s Scattered Light sent me deep into uncharted waters. I met the Powys clan in all their varied moods and passions, ancient Japanese sculptors, Russian philosophers and artists like Ernest Zobole and Jim Insole. Meditations on the nature of poetry figure large – ‘Tell me, then, what is the use of poetry?’, asks Hooker, in ‘Orphic Fragments’. The answer is ambiguous, shape-shifting:

I could answer: poetry gives the rowers
the rhythm of the stroke
and when the sea roars, soothes it,
charms the rocks and lulls the dragon to sleep …

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About the author

Frank Olding writes in Welsh and is a widely published poet and critic. His first full collection, Mynydd Du, was published in 2012. This year, he chaired the executive committee for the National Eisteddfod at Abergavenny and he is a member of the Gorsedd of Bards.