88pp, \u00a39.99, Arc Publications, Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road, Todmorden OL14 6DA<\/p>\n
The idea of love is at the core of The Arrow Maker<\/em>. Different poems present examples of it in very different senses \u2013 love of community or children, kindness to strangers, care for the environment, concern for the suffering. Diverse as these takes on love may seem, we\u2019re encouraged to think about the relationship between them by others that express the idea in more general terms: \u201cSt Francis in Winter\u201d, \u201cThe Buddha Amit?bha\u201d, and three translations from Dante. Black\u2019s tone is far from didactic, though. His whole approach is humane and open-minded, pragmatic as well as tentatively visionary, and suffused by gentle humour.<\/p>\n Subtle thinking in poetry demands subtlety of syntax and metre. A remarkable triumph in this way is \u201cSelf-Reliance\u201d, in which a single arc of thought evolves through a complex, 21 line sentence. This is beautifully paced to suggest meditative deliberation while maintaining a steady momentum. In the end it gathers to a quietly startling climax that changes your perspective on everything that\u2019s gone before. Throughout the whole book, Black shows himself a master of the self-questioning cadence and rhythms suggesting the pursuit of an elusive idea.<\/p>\n Such sensitivity of construction allows the poems to present thought through constantly shifting angles. They\u2019re also enriched by intertextual reference. Admittedly, few people will be familiar with all the cultural contexts informing this book. \u201cClassical\u201d, a compassionate reflection on Ezra Pound\u2019s treasonable support for Mussolini, shows how skilfully Black serves both those who do pick up the relevant allusions and those who don\u2019t. There are poignant gains in resonance for those who know Pound\u2019s life and recognize references to the Cantos. However, by refiguring Mussolini as a cottaging seducer and Pound as his silly victim Black both makes the poem meaningful for those who\u2019re vague about Pound and \u2013 blasting things into a wider perspective \u2013 makes his fall one tragic instance of general human frailty:<\/p>\n You with an ear and eye The three-parter, \u201cAges of Man: Breaking the News\u201d is particularly rich and enjoyable. Inspired, we\u2019re told, by an exhibition of Ice Age art, it imagines the changing relations between the sexes over time. The first two sections brilliantly present the jagged, swerving, fearful ambivalence of early men\u2019s feelings about women, the world, and themselves. I say men\u2019s<\/em> but it\u2019s all expressed in terms of a generic he<\/em> so these historical stages are also stages in the life of a single man. In the third section forest floor and Ice Age hut give way to a modern kitchen, he<\/em> becomes a senior citizen about to be a grandfather, and the storm of conflicting emotions is replaced by joy lifted on a surge of thrillingly fluid, multi-layered wonder:<\/p>\n Now on a different floor he stands at ease <\/p>\n I would like to thank Peter and Ann Sansom for permission to post this review originally published in The North 60. I’ve made some slight changes of wording for the sake of clarity but without adding to or modifying the substance of the original piece.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 88pp, \u00a39.99, Arc Publications, Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road, Todmorden OL14 6DA The idea of love is at the core of The Arrow Maker. Different poems present examples of it in very different senses \u2013 love of community or children, kindness to strangers, care for the environment, concern for the suffering. Diverse as these takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-2063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-d-m-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2063"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2066,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063\/revisions\/2066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nas sharp as any in poetry, fell for that pumped-up
\nfraudster\u2019s bombast and forgot
\nthat courage lay in mastering vanity
\nand not in swooning when some manly jawbone
\nbeckoned you to the latrines…<\/p>\n
\nby the sink in a sunlit kitchen, coming events
\ncasting their radiance before. His daughter
\nbrightens the sunlight as she talks, her smiling
\neyes on his, and he is smiling too,
\nthough serious. He jokes \u2013 what will they call
\nthe as-yet-ungendered infant? \u2013 and their agenda
\nis practical: prenatal yoga, breast-feeding,
\nand the years that are taken for granted. He
\nis calm, delighted, and restrains
\nas best he can the astonishment within…<\/p>\n