Geraldine Monk's Lobe Scarps & Finials (Leafe Press, 2011)

I've just finished reading the latest collection from Geraldine Monk, Lobe Scarps & Finials, and warmly recommend it. While some of the poems worked more for me than others, on the whole I relished its playfulness and good humour, its chattiness and range of register, and concur with David Wheatley's thoughtful review in The Guardian. Here are just a few choice passages:

Rock runs to slurry.

Earthquakes cakewalk the

globe and back.

dunder. earth. death. dearth. abide.

*

O.K. lamb--

meek it out...

from "March"

...everything was elsewhere and

being England it was cloudy.

*

Colder. Wetter.

Perseids a proper shower

hurtling a best-in-years

outta-sight and

being England it was cloudy.

from "August"

Vegetables must be

peeled eyes removed

hearts recovered. Fruit flesh

parted with gravity.

from "November"

In a late summer night courtyard illuminated

shafts of wet creaked a simmering up-deep.

*

How greener is the other side of the

body incorruptible?

*

Moderation didn't make the

universe burst into pentameters.

Extremes teem. Petals and

thorns. Throne of frowns.

from "Poppyheads"

I'd quote more if I could replicate the spacing. You can buy the book directly from the publisher here.