MIRRORED STROPHES IN LITTERATURE CRACK

‘Beautifully crafted, this is a fine collection from a poet at the top of his game.’ – Trevor Heaton, Eastern Daily Press ‘… a distinguished poet who transcends boundaries with deep insights into our turbulent times… readers who are lovers of poetry would do well to savour these poems one by one.’ – Moris Farhi, The Jewish Chronicle ‘… I am immensely excited by George Szirtes’s new collection, which looks at the delta, both as a fluvial concept and part of his anglo-European identity.’ – John Owen, Country & Town House, Christmas Books The Delta has to survive – if it survives at all – on its broken patterns. Many of the poems are formal haiku sequences. The poem breaks up across the page at intervals then reassembles into its mirrors.

Anxiety remains: disaster zones persist into old age and death, and into the life, death and resurrection of language itself.Īt the core of the book is The Yellow Room, a sequence of mirror poems contemplating the Jewishness of the poet’s father. Planes crash, boats sink, weather changes, floodwaters rise, people vanish on journeys.

MIRRORED STROPHES IN LITTERATURE CRACK

And occasionally the world does crack open. Life goes on its desultory way, finding itself between creeks and cracks. They court each other, desire their own species, are captivated both by each other’s and their own beauty. They try to puzzle each other out, looking to climb into each other’s eyes. Dreamers and fantasists repopulate its hidden corners: Rimbaud, Bruno Schultz, William Blake, Arthur Schnitzler and the physicist Dennis Gabor lay claim to their own visions of it.Īnimals gaze at their human companions who gaze back. Individuals move through the night and come upon themselves in its mirrors. Whole countries inhabit it, exercising their powers and authority, presenting their offers of complicity and compliance.

Mirrored strophes in litterature