The Random Poetry Experiment

Poetry: it's great. But like music, it comes in many varieties. To explore the form, The Skinny's Books writers were randomly assigned some poetry collections, and asked to try to understand them if nothing else. Here's what happened...

Darling
by Jackie Kay

What struck me about Kay’s work was the sheer urgency of voice; the poems cry out, desperate for an audience. Even the typeface is manipulated as a means of conveying several voices within the same stanza. A quick glance at the subject matter justifies this determination to be heard – identity, race, sexuality, gender and humour all vie for attention almost simultaneously. The free-verse that Kay employs throughout aids this immediacy, addressing the reader in an almost conversational style. The effect is often poignant; the birth-mother searching for her adopted child, the lover spurned. The poet is constantly challenging perceptions and assumptions and is aided by her colloquial use of language. The use of Scots in particular provides many moments of humour laced with melancholy. Emotions are captured which the reader can identify and emphasise with; Kay’s poetry unleashes a multitude of voices which cannot fail to captivate. [Katie Gordon]
Out now, published by Bloodaxe. Cover Price £9.95

Hart Crane (Poet to Poet)
Poems selected by Maurice Riordan

Maybe not the best Hart Crane collection, in that it doesn’t include ‘The Bridge’ in its entirety, the reason to read this book is to see what the poet Maurice Riordan thinks about Crane. Crane killed himself at the age of 32, leaving behind a number of poems which made his talent evident. Riordan claims, convincingly, that Crane’s central work ‘The Bridge’ was a failure, but a failure of massive importance and abiding interest. From the selections here, we get a good idea why. Crane’s poetry is swirling with very complicated imagery and ideas, and it’s extremely dense. So, though I found it hard to get through these poems, I re-read them soon after. One for people who read a lot of poetry and are looking for a challenge. [Jack Lynch]
Out now, published by Faber and Faber. Cover Price £4.99

Thomas Wyatt (Poet to Poet)
Poems selected by Alice Oswald

Being somewhat of a poetry ignoramus, I have been keen on broadening my literary horizons for sometime now, so I jumped at the chance of taking part in this wee experiment. However, when a collection of poems by Ambassador to Henry VIII, Sir Thomas Wyatt, arrived through my door, I must admit it took some effort to make sense of his anguish ridden sonnets. Then I moved past ‘Wyatt in his own Voice’ and on to the poems, originally edited by Rebholz for Penguin; the modernised spelling and punctuation certainly helps make the language more accessible to a modern audience. While many see Wyatt as a love poet, it is also clear to see the grief and disquiet in his metered verse. However, that is about all my analytical skills are up to. It seems to be something of a skill to be able to dissect and understand the meaning of poetry. This is a worthwhile read, but it needs some preparation. [Rebecca Isherwood]
Out now, published by Faber and Faber. Cover price £5.99

The Bestiary
by Sam Meekings

Sam Meekings is a modern poet, and The Bestiary is a very modern poetry collection. It’s almost exclusively unrhymed, which seems to be standard nowadays, but it’s almost never free verse – there are schemes and meters bubbling under most of these poems. Meekings uses some lovely images – seahorses are ‘matchbox dragons’, a bat is ‘A flap of tattered black leather / pulled taught over a rung of knuckle’. The poems are harder to grasp than I thought they’d be, but this may be no bad thing. And Meekings is clearly in command of his verse – the tightly controlled ‘School of Rushes’ is taken from Dante, and whilst it keeps the original structure and rhyme scheme, it somehow fits into this very different collection too. Meekings is complicated but accessible, and worth keeping an eye on. [Ryan Agee]
Out now, published by Birlinn. Cover price £7.99

Alexander Pope (Poet to Poet)
Poems Selected by John Fuller

Alexander Pope is known as the greatest English poet of the 18th century, but such a grand title perhaps lends to unpopularity and inaccessibility in the 21st century; too good to understand let alone approach with a bargepole. But I approached him, and now I won't let him go. He is not a translator, satirist, or a romantic, but a master wordsmith. Pope had a great affinity for classical verse and this lends his poems weight, even romance, although this is in strict contrast to his satires where his wit is dry and his tongue is sharp. His work is rich, but his lyrical words and rhythmic metre pull you in like an undertow. It can be heavy, but it is so lovely and so beautiful that you can't help but read on. I wouldn’t claim that I understand all his work, aims or themes, but I now want to and I will read him eagerly for the rest of my life. [Renée Rowland]
Out now, published by Faber and Faber. Cover price £4.99