Jacob Polley’s “Potsherds”
Polley’s “Potsherds” seems to me to echo the cadences of some of Mahon’s earlier poems like “An Image from Beckett” and “Lives” (both also written in triplets) and “The Apotheosis of Tins”. I think it’s interesting and suggestive to hold these poems together in the mind and let them play against each other, but of course “Potsherds” has preoccupations and a voice all its own, and it’s these that I want to look at.[1]
The opening lines are brilliantly paced to combine quietly understated language with imaginative sweep, especially in the dramatic expansion of perspective brought by line three:… Continue Reading