What's so good about being fast? Sometimes a little patience goes a long way, and a slow thing can be just what you need. Slow walks, slow thoughts and slow afternoons in the sun provide inspiration for the poets in Slow Things, an anthology which celebrates taking life at a leisurely pace and existing in the present. As ice, traffic and a giant wooden boulder all advance with a soothing inevitability, the poets invite us to see the beauty in the accretion of tea-stains in a teapot and the unwavering stare of a Loris.
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[What are we to do with all this sky? / Swifts swoop and stitch it / to the glistening grass ELLON BY ISOBEL DIXON]***
(@TheEmmaPress, 24 August 2018, e-book, 57 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs, edited by Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright)
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This is another impressive collection from The Emma Press. I've read a few recently and really enjoyed them. Now I seek out collections they've published as I expect the quality to be quite high. I'd never heard of any of the poets before so I enjoyed discovering new voices. This is a very short anthology and I read it very quickly and was disappointed when I reached the end. The best poems are Ellon by Isobel Dixon, When It Hit Me It Was Slow, It Was Multiple by Jessica Schouela, 10:15 by Ben Rogers, Friday Afternoon by Alison Brackenbury and Dear Loris by Caroline Gill.
