Set against the charms and vicissitudes of growing up in a family of musicians, Jodie Hollander's beautifully-structured and compelling debut follows the story of a daughter's maturing relationship with her mother. Interspersed with versions of Rimbaud, and always alert to the surreal comedy of the human condition, these powerful and immediate poems chart with huge passion, musicality, and insight a complex journey towards familial understanding and reconciliation.
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(@LivUniPress, 1 September 2017, ebook, 84 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs)
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This is a new poet for me. One of the huge benefits of membership to the National Poetry Library is finding new poets all the time. I enjoyed every poem in My Dark Horses though I much preferred the later poems which deal with the death of the poet's mother and the associated grief, loss and memories. It took a few poems for me to get into the poet's style, language and subject matter. The poems in My Dark Horses are intense, moving and very personal, raw and visceral at times. A thoroughly enjoyable collection.