Serious, comic, brave, cowardly, engaged, disengaged, urgent, unurgent, chattering chiffchaff, talking horses, unpretentious, pretentious, all of God's creatures are here. There's also an almost - but not quite - dialogue between the poems and the laconic (and sometimes furious) musings of the passages which punctuate them. There are a series of Fairy-tale poems, and others which give unfettered voice to Marcie, a character who has appeared in Mark Waldron's previous books. Behind the humour and playfulness, there is always something deeply unmeant, meant.
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The trees rise up burn downthe trees rise up and burn burn- BURN DOWN
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(@BloodaxeBooks, 22 June 2023, e-book, 112 pages, ARC from the publisher via @edelweiss_squad)
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A Straight Up Giant was a mixed bag of a poetry collection for me. I enjoyed some of the poems, especially the Fairy-tale inspired ones but the vast majority left me cold. The poems are quite abstract and humorous which really didn't appeal to me as they weren't to my taste. I chose to read this collection as I loved the cover. I'm disappointed that what was behind the cover didn't mesh for me.
