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

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

RDP

print this page

Review Articles

nothing personal, LeRoy Gorman

nothing personal, LeRoy Gorman, proof press, 67 Court St, Aylmer (QC), Canada, 11x14 cm, ISBN 1-89-5778-34-4, $5 ppd.

Also a hundred or so verses, with great variety of form and subject. LRG doesn’t worry about any season he may be in. He is a humourist and wit, though there’s no whimsy or playing to the gallery. Sometimes, as with the descriptive verses, the point seems just out of reach, as if, if one knew him or what he’s talking about better, it would come over more clearly. But much of the humour is immediate, ranging from sardonic to farcical:

bombs in Ulster
limb to limb
a redwing flits		   the upright citizen’s
upright gravestone
laid flat by the wind

LRG fulfils the minimum definition of haiku, that it shows or implies a picture which tells its own story. He is also sensitive to sound, smell and texture:

thunder closes in
click-clicks quicken
in a game of marbles		   in bud again
the commemorative oak
with its oxidised little plaque

There are some concrete poems, and five sketches (splashes) by the author. It’s hard to say what is typical of the collection - the author might come up with anything - but these two are representative of much (the first follows a verse about a traffic jam):

above the traffic
a clock
with no hands		        coming up in rows
the anarchist’s asparagus

 

Page(s) 62

Back to top