Monday, January 07, 2008

Two books I ought to add to my list of favourite books of 2007.

David Morley's Invisible Kings, which is one of most inventive and enlightening books of 2007, and from the usually rather dry Carcanet press (I agree with Jane about Carcanet, often: though Ashbery & O'Hara are on their list.) Due to failing memory, I missed this out of my list. Apologies, David, it was great, especially the title poem Kings. Its use of Romanni language and its shape poetry, and its trawling of folklore, was wonderful.

And, just inside the year, Sandra Tappenden's Speed, which is Salt, of course. Very fast poetry, to be read fast, but several times over so you can get what you missed the first time. It's the kind of poetry that I can imagine some critics skimming over because it doesn't seem serious, and yet under the speed and the wit, there's a lot of serious meditation on mortality, on the way we live in the 21st century, on sexual politics.

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