Reviews
Peeled by Subhadassi.
Arc Publications, Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road, Todmorden, Lancs 0L14 6DA £7.
Subhadassi is a Bhuddist and, although he doesn't write about this directly, it is apparent in the atmosphere of some of the poems in Peeled. There's a variety of voices and styles, from the demotic to the sonorous. Sometimes the two are in the same poem. In The Beloved: 'When she's had her way, closed her circle, / good and proper around him thrice / fed him her honey, she's off, sharpish. / He's a goner, the house of his body derelict / from a whole month in the sway of her frenzy; / strip-teasing him, shaking those fennel heads; / floating him in her ocean...'. This works well but I find him most powerful in, for instance, Sky Burial. This is sharply brilliant, terse, combining strong images with an elegance of style: 'When the body dies there is no need to keep it. / Wood is scarce; the ground all frost...' to 'And he strives to meet the increases she met in death / within his placid mind, his ruddy flesh // while the birds - much quicker to digest - / drop strings of bloody pearls over the snowfields of Tibet'. A wide variety of themes include reflections on turning off a mobile phone, a magpie and a magnificent poem on Lorca, the grief at his horrible murder encapsulated in 'A horse without a mount / thunders its heart out on the plain'. Subhadassi's perceptions are original and angles surprising. He often takes a small object, turns it over and views it with a freshness, giving an unexpected emotional impact. He also covers broader topics with insight that is both powerful and delicate. This is a fine collection.
Page(s) 43-44
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