Little Gods by Jacob Polley
Picador (2006)
51pp, £8.99
ISBN: 9780330444200
Polley’s excellent debut The Brink, published in 2003 was a remarkable critical success. The collection was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T S Eliot, Forward and John Llewellyn Rhys prizes. In Little Gods Polley presents a much more unified collection; work that is, as the blurb states, guided by ‘old-fashioned lyric inspiration’.
The poems here are persistently concerned with the end of a relationship. Whilst there is not a stringent narrative in the sequencing of the poems, Polley has taken care to present a collection that starts in ‘April’ and moves towards ‘October’; the middle of the collection hinges on two poems neatly placed on opposite pages, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Morning’. The overall feel is of a difficult landscape, each image or emotion is sensitively explored; easy or sentimental conclusions are avoided. Indeed, the voice is disarmingly naked and direct, in ‘Dor Beetle’ the conjured ‘shit-eater’ is commanded ‘At the end of love, start burrowing'.
It is to Polley’s great credit that poems from the seat of such emotion are harnessed into affecting lyric forms. This lyric impulse is a significant departure from The Brink, this new collection includes some truly wonderful sonnets – opening poem ‘The Owls’ is likely to be much anthologised. Polley’s ear is present in abundance, he is unafraid to use full rhymes to drive pounding rhythms, take the close of ‘The Cheapjack’ (Forward Shortlisted for best single poem 2006):
…Here’s my nod,
Here’s my wink,
Here’s my blood for the ink.
I’m begging you now; my life for the lot.
The unforgiving landscape of Little Gods is littered with common images; owls, beetles, rain, the moon and glass all reoccur as powerful symbols. There is the distinct feeling of the occult in the poems, there are allusions to witches and goddesses but this is not to say that the poems follow old tropes. There are striking individual images that endure such as ‘Rain’s inconsequence to the sea’ from ‘Rain’ and in ‘Black Water’ the bitter conclusion ‘your heart’s no more than meat’.
There are instances where the writing falls flat, ‘Mirror’ for example seems more like effort waiting, unable to shift gears. But such lapses are rare and each such piece is in tune with the unsettling world of the collection as a whole.
Little Gods is a work that opens the door on deeply intimate emotions. That Polley can engage so forcefully for a full collection is testament to the quality of his writing. There is no easy sentiment and no saccharined ending reached; by ‘October’, the last poem listed in the collection’s contents, Polley can only conclude:
Each mind’s a different, distant world
This same moon will not leave.
(There is an unlisted, short lyric buried at the close of the collection – you’ll have to buy it to find out what it says.)
Jacob Polley has talent in spades. After two full length collections it is clear that there is real purpose to his writing. Future work from him is eagerly awaited.
• Reviewed by Matt Howard