Late Gifts is a joyful and anxious book. The eponymous late gift, this book's occasion, is a son, born to a middle-aged father. How does this change his sense of present and future, of time itself? The poet focuses on this demanding and joyful relationship in terms that are funny and re-energising, his world renewed. The child's future makes more urgent the environmental and political themes which have long been a concern for the poet.
Here Price has developed new forms for his subject matter, including striking longer pieces which survey contemporary worlds with arresting imagery and a hypnotic energy, the twin gatherings of prose poems 'Shore Gifts' and 'Shore Thefts', and quieter, meditative poems of elegy and awe-struck praise. As Maureen N. McLane has written, 'He is one of our most attentive, delicate, ferocious transmitters, singers, makers.'
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(@Carcanet, 7 July 2022, e-book, 130 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib)
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I enjoyed Late Gifts, my first from the poet. Many of the poems focus on the relationship between parent and child, father, and son. Poems that step outside these themes are very approachable and touch on universal ideas, beliefs, and concepts. The poems are well written and engaging, expertly crafted.
