The landscape of contemporary British poetry remains vibrant and challenging, as evidenced by a compelling selection of recent collections. Five distinct voices offer explorations of memory, labour, faith, and the self, each employing unique formal techniques to capture the complexities of modern life.
The Sombre Chronicles of Sean O'Brien
Sean O'Brien's latest collection, "The Bonfire Party," published by Picador at £12.99, presents a sombre and authoritative meditation on our times. The poet employs a varied range of forms to grapple with weighty themes including history, political conflict, and the passage of time. A central sequence, Impasse, draws inspiration from Georges Simenon's Maigret novels, immersing the reader in a detective's dreamlike world of recurring motifs and enduring mystery.
The collection's penultimate poem strikes an elegiac tone, reminding the reader of enduring beauty amidst transience. O'Brien solidifies his role as a chronicler, masterfully examining how "love and death consort as they must" in the human experience.
Matthew Rice's Bleak Ode to Night Work
In Matthew Rice's book-length poem "Plastic" (Fitzcarraldo, £12.99), the relentless grind of 21st-century manual labour is laid bare. Structured as a continuous narrative, it follows a night-shift worker turned poet within the confines of a plastic moulding factory. The poem documents tragic incidents and surreal imaginings, painting a stark picture of a "proletarian" night.
This sardonic and moving work interrogates working-class masculinity and intergenerational trauma, presenting work itself as a potential hell. Yet, it also finds fleeting glimpses of hope, suggesting poetry itself can be "the treasure buried in my father's field."
Female Experience and Defiance
Michelle Penn's "Retablo for a Door" (Shearsman, £12.95) uses the concept of a votive retablo to explore challenging facets of female experience. The collection, divided into seven sections, presents a gallery of womanhood through vivid and formally innovative poems. They engage with performance, identity, and moments of vulnerability.
The journey culminates in a powerful assertion of defiance, championing "the humiliated girls, the taunted girls" and envisioning their rebellion. Penn's work is a striking call for resilience and self-assertion.
Luminous Faith and Fragmented Times
John F Deane's "Jonah and Me" (Carcanet, £12.99) shimmers with the luminosity of Christian faith, explored through multiple voices. These lucid and musical poems urge a life of reverence, attuned to natural beauty from "gracious meadows wild with buttercups." Deane simultaneously acknowledges our fragmented era, marked by barbarism and violence.
This expansive and sonically rich collection leaves the reader with a profound sense of wonder. Its final poem gestures towards a spiritual departure, moving "towards a long-anticipated rest."
The Delicate Architecture of Self
Tess Jolly's second collection, "Intimate Architecture" (Blue Diode, £10), examines the fragile boundaries between self and other. The title poem evokes a doll's house with walls as tender as a "honeycomb of chambers." Recalling fairy tales and childhood memory, these well-crafted poems reveal inner anxieties colliding with external reality.
Jolly skilfully depicts the tension in human relationships and the longing for intimacy, using arresting imagery of fragile bodies and imagined forests. The collection is a poignant study of the structures we build for protection and connection.
Together, these five collections demonstrate the enduring power and formal diversity of contemporary poetry in the United Kingdom. They offer readers profound insights into the pressing personal and political concerns of our moment, from the factory floor to the spiritual realm.
