In Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb turns poetry to an examination of the textures of class, youth, adulthood and death in the working communities of the West Country, from mobile home parks, boyish factory workers and saleswomen kept on the road for days at a time, to the yearnings of young love and the complexities of masculinity.
Alongside individual poems, three sequences predominate: a series of 'Love Stories', charting a course through the dreams, lies and salt-baked limbs of multiple relationships; 'Diagnostics', which tells the story of the death from cancer of the poet's father; and 'Treetops', a virtuosic long poem weaving together grief and mental health struggles in an attempt to come to terms with the overwhelming data of a life.
The world of these poems is close, dangerous, lustrous and difficult: a world in which whole existences are lived in the spin of almost-inescapable fates. In searching for the light within it, this prodigious debut collection announces the arrival of a major new voice in British poetry.
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Hard work, its hard work. These are the conditions. The only thing you can trust is that it will be hard work. FACTOTUM OR SUITE FOR NANCY
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(@PenguinUKBooks, 27 May 2021, ebook, 112 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveInc)
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I chose Rotten Days in Late Summer because I loved the cover and I thought the poetry collection had a great title. I really enjoyed the poems on offer here and look forward to reading more of the poet's work. The poems are very modern and echo my own life and experiences in many ways. I found the poms well-written, powerful, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable. I'd recommend this.
