Annemarie Austin's vividly imaginative poems explore other worlds and other lives, drawing upon her own memories and experiences, as well as on art, travel, dream, myth, history and literature.
The first poem in her new collection asks 'Shall we go on the shiny?', the last one ends 'being altogether gone this time'. In between there's the tightrope, 'The Walking Shot', the report on the pilgrimage in progress, the marquise going out at five o'clock. The eye moves left to right along with the poems' movement. Though there are stops from time to time, for problems of the unidentified, the location of waterholes, whether or not those birds are oystercatchers, for the interior of a pocket and Nijinsky jumping. Then on, maybe to the beach again. Shall We Go? is Annemarie Austin's eighth book of poetry, following her Bloodaxe retrospective, Very: New & Selected Poems (2008) and later collection Track (2014).
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The boy dragged a big spade behind him across the sand pockmarked by rain towards where a high tide had left it smooth and sodden and reflective. SHALL WE GO ON THE SHINY?
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(@BloodaxeBooks, 21 October 2021, ebook, 72 pages, #ARC from the publisher via @edelweiss_squad and voluntarily reviewed)
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This is a new poet for me. I really enjoyed the poems on offer here. I'd definitely read more of her work. I liked the imagery used throughout the poems, a blend of myth, fantasy and reality. The poems are vivid and impressive. The poems touch on familiar themes given the poet's own unique twist. I enjoyed every piece.