{"id":1057,"date":"2007-09-05T15:49:15","date_gmt":"2007-09-05T15:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1057"},"modified":"2007-09-05T15:49:15","modified_gmt":"2007-09-05T15:49:15","slug":"moonlit-burrowing-%e2%80%93-little-gods-reviewed-by-matt-howard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/moonlit-burrowing-%e2%80%93-little-gods-reviewed-by-matt-howard\/","title":{"rendered":"Moonlit Burrowing \u2013 Little Gods reviewed by Matt Howard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Little Gods by Jacob Polley<\/span>
<\/span><\/font>Picador (2006)
<\/span><\/font>51pp, \u00a38.99<\/span>
ISBN: 9780330444200<\/span>

Polley\u2019s excellent debut The Brink<\/span>, 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<\/span> Polley presents a much more unified collection; work that is, as the blurb states, guided by \u2018old-fashioned lyric inspiration\u2019.<\/span>

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 \u2018April\u2019 and moves towards \u2018October\u2019; the middle of the collection hinges on two poems neatly placed on opposite pages, \u2018Twilight\u2019 and \u2018Morning\u2019.  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 \u2018Dor Beetle\u2019 the conjured \u2018shit-eater\u2019 is commanded \u2018At the end of love, start burrowing'.<\/span>

It is to Polley\u2019s 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<\/span>, this new collection includes some truly wonderful sonnets \u2013 opening poem \u2018The Owls\u2019 is likely to be much anthologised. Polley\u2019s ear is present in abundance, he is unafraid to use full rhymes to drive pounding rhythms, take the close of \u2018The Cheapjack\u2019 (Forward Shortlisted for best single poem 2006):<\/span>

                                    \u2026Here\u2019s my nod,<\/span>
         Here\u2019s my wink,<\/span>
         Here\u2019s my blood for the ink.    <\/span>
    I\u2019m begging you now; my life for the lot.<\/span>

The unforgiving landscape of Little Gods<\/span> 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 \u2018Rain\u2019s inconsequence to the sea\u2019 from \u2018Rain\u2019 and in \u2018Black Water\u2019 the bitter conclusion \u2018your heart\u2019s no more than meat\u2019.<\/span>

There are instances where the writing falls flat, \u2018Mirror\u2019 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.<\/span>

Little Gods<\/span> 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 \u2018October\u2019, the last poem listed in the collection\u2019s contents, Polley can only conclude:<\/span>
    <\/span>

    Each mind\u2019s a different, distant world<\/span>
        This same moon will not leave.<\/span>

(There is an unlisted, short lyric buried at the close of the collection \u2013 you\u2019ll have to buy it to find out what it says.)<\/span>

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. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Reviewed by Matt Howard
<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little Gods by Jacob PolleyPicador (2006)51pp, \u00a38.99ISBN: 9780330444200Polley\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}