Monday 2 January 2012

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.



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