128 pp, \u00a312.00, Bloodaxe Books Ltd, Eastburn, South Park, Hexham, Northumberland NE46 1BS<\/p>\n
In Dharker\u2019s last collection, Over the Moon<\/em>, nearly all the poems were very specifically rooted in time and place. That concrete grounding gave them a great deal of their power. Luck Is the Hook<\/em> works in a different way, making it both a departure from and a complement to the previous volume.<\/p>\n It\u2019s essentially lyrical, concentrating on exploring emotions in themselves rather than their causes. One result is a smoother, more musical style. Another is the flowering of a mythical or fabulous mode. Over the Moon<\/em> was dominated by poems about the poet\u2019s husband and his death. Indirectly continuing this theme, some in this book adapt the stories of Persephone or Eurydice, and stories about ghosts or water spirits falling in love with mortals. As a group they express impossible yearnings to cross the gulf between living and dead. Dharker gives them emotional power by the convincing way she imbues insubstantial or inanimate things with feeling and desire. In \u201cFlight\u201d, for example, the speaker looks down a well \u201cto where the stones are green \/ with longing, and the water \/ wants us in\u201d. So although not grounded in particular and apparently true circumstances, these poems are concrete and vivid in their own way.<\/p>\n Dharker\u2019s lack of timidity about sex contributes to her fineness as a love poet. Against the poems of longing and loss there\u2019s the lovely stillness of secure possession in \u201cTo have all this\u201d, a poem that captures the perfect physical and mental harmony between two people:<\/p>\n The certainty of waking in your eyes, these mornings \u2013 count them \u2013 Such eternity in a moment is precious precisely because wider experience tells us it can\u2019t last.<\/p>\n The knowledge that all things pass is woven throughout the book. Dharker can sound bleak, as in the beginning of \u201cThis Tide of Humber\u201d. However, the very phrase \u201cto have all this\u201d suggests gratitude and celebration. Moments of strangeness, beauty and joy are repeatedly held up for our embrace. What we seem to be asked to feel is not sorrow at their inevitable passing but gladness that they\u2019ve been. There\u2019s a charming instance in \u201cThe Elephant is walking on the River Thames\u201d, one of several referring to the last great frost fair on the river in 1814. Dharker describes the crowning wonder of an elephant<\/em>\u2019s crossing the ice and how stunned everyone is as \u201cthe creature sails by, more \/ graceful than any stilt-walker or skater\u201d. The moment passes, like the days of the fair, but later those who saw it will recall it \u201clike something suspended in time.\u201d<\/p>\n Dharker is a visual artist as well as a poet, and her haunting black and white drawings are another pleasure of the book.<\/p>\n I would like to thank Peter and Ann Sansom for permission to post this review, which was originally published in The North 60.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 128 pp, \u00a312.00, Bloodaxe Books Ltd, Eastburn, South Park, Hexham, Northumberland NE46 1BS In Dharker\u2019s last collection, Over the Moon, nearly all the poems were very specifically rooted in time and place. That concrete grounding gave them a great deal of their power. Luck Is the Hook works in a different way, making it both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imtiaz-dharker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076"}],"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=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2078,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nyou in mine; the quiet drifting
\nin and out of each other\u2019s sleep, this calm;<\/p>\n
\nwhen snowfall hushes the outside
\nand the bed is our only country<\/p>\n