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The Mermaid’s Purse by Fleur Adcock

By Pamelascott

Fleur Adcock began writing the poems in this book when she was 82. The two chief settings are New Zealand, with its multi-coloured seas, and Britain, seen in various decades. There are foreign travels, flirtations, family memories, deaths and conversations with the dead. Katherine Mansfield, incognito, dodges an academic conference; there's a lesson in water divining as well as a rather unusual Christmas party. We meet several varieties of small mammal, numerous birds, doomed or otherwise, and some sheep. The book ends with a sequence in memory of her friend, the poet Roy Fisher.

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When you pick it up, is full of squirmy larvae - she doesn't carry actual money THE MERMAID'S PURSE

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(@BloodaxeBooks, 25 February 2021, ebook, 72 pages, #ARC from the publisher via @edelweiss_squad and voluntarily reviewed)

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I'm quite a fan of the poet. I've read a lot of her work. I was looking forward to this. I liked the title and the image on the front cover. The collection is not what I expected, given the title and image on the front cover I was hoping for poems about the sea and sea creatures. Very little of this can be found in The Mermaid's Purse. Still, I enjoyed the poems nevertheless. Water and nature do recur as a theme in the poems as do familiar tropes such as death, grief, friendship and human fragility. Adcock has a way with words. My favourite poems were The Mermaid's Purse, The Islands, House, Siena, Divining, Novice Flyer and Tatters.

Mermaid’s Purse Fleur Adcock

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