Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

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This is a meticulously crafted collection of poems. Not only does each poem look like a poem but you feel that each has been polished. But also you become hypnotised by the language so that at the end of each poem, although you may not quite know what you have read, you feel an overall something. These poems are made of
words that seem to find a collective resting place. They are not spotlights shining on a subject; more, they have the effect of the Northern Lights. There are flashes in the sky and you don’t quite know where they are coming from. Such an effect is illustrated in the poem “Boats” which draws a picture of

“...a man hiring boats who once
Saw different colours on the water.
And I content myself with each ripple
The ducks make, as they build and die
On the bank along with things that
                                               matter.”

And this dreamy image is expanded by the lines

“But the dark river leaves no messages
For the man or me to grow wise
On, only the ducks and twitches of wind.”

This poem typifies the atmosphere of the collection. And why have I spent so long on this one poem? Why have I quoted so much? It is because it would be hard to quote less in order to illustrate the texture of the book. You feel that there are colours and they are bright but they run into one another so that each poem poses its own
secret. And so I found myself trying to pin down the poems, probably a mistake on my part, for somehow they would not be
pinned down.

Then there is “Zennor”. I have run down the secret in this poem through consulting the Internet. The village of Zennor lies between St Ives and St Just in Cornwall. There are myths and tales about the village and one of these concerns “The Mermaid of Zennor” who is mentioned on the bench–end of one of the pews in the 15th century Church. A richly– dressed lady, who nobody knew, had attended Church for some time. A certain Matthew Trewella, a Churchwarden’s son, fell in love with her and she lured him away and was not seen again for many years, until sailors on a ship anchored near Pendower Cove saw a mermaid rising from the water and recognised her as this lady. The poem starts

“That was when they would turn for her
                                                    singing,
There in the pew where the sun
                                  varnished the wood”
...“So he followed her, her sad
Music still in his head...”
“Later, it was the silver rain pitting
The water or her voice they heard again
From the balancing waves.”...

The meaning of this poem was revealed when I had tracked down the myth.

This is a book of beautiful images and wonderful language but above all, mystery.