Night

by David Harsent

Among the poems that open Night, David Harsent's follow-up to his Forward Prize-winning collection Legion, is a startling sequence about a garden - but a garden unlike any other. It sets the tone for a book in which the sureties of daylight become dark, unsettling narratives about what wakes in us when we escape our day-lit selves to visit a place where the dream-like and the nightmarish are never far apart. The book culminates in the seductive and brilliantly sustained 'Elsewhere', a noirish, labyrinthine quest-poem in which the protagonist is drawn ever onward through a series of encounters and reflections like an after-hours Orpheus, hard-bitten and harried by memory.

Genres: Poetry

131 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 13, 2010

About the author

David Harsent is an English poet and TV scriptwriter. Harsent also writes crime fiction novels under the pseudonyms David Lawrence, David Pascoe and Jack Curtis. He has published eleven collections of poetry which have won several literary prizes and awards. Legion won the Forward Prize for best collection 2005 and was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread Awards.

He lives with his wife, the actress Julia Watson and their daughter in London.

Reviews

[Rosamund · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing here is stunning but it was an uneasy read for me as I picked up a streak of nastiness in some of the poems. Of course that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Mauberley]

'How it feels when the mad machine cranks up/ and the room breeds shadows out of dusk.' ('night', stanza vii).

It took a while to work its magic, for me to catch a whiff of Harsent's art, but this is truly exciting poetry. The long poem that ends the volume ('Elsewhere') is a rollicking ride through dream time with a powerfully fueled narrative drive. When have you last come across poetry that reads like a thriller? Neither me. I wasn't surprised to learn that the poet has also written mysteries of repute.

'The Queen Bee Canticles' were also real standouts for me - strange, even grotesque, but utterly delightful.

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to say, it took me a while to sit comfortably within Harsent's writing style as in Night (the first collection of his work that I've read), the imagery is so densely packed and laden with metaphor and reference that it was sometimes difficult for me to find a foot-hold. However, by the time I got to Spatchcock and the poems that followed, I began to THOROUGHLY enjoy the dream-like worlds that Harsent was creating and indulged in his rich use of language. Definitely plan on giving this a re-read now I've scratched the surface of the poems. Two (and a half) stars for now, but we'll have to see won't we.

[Harry Rutherford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one from the Poetry Book Society; this is more to my taste than the Sean O'Brien.

[Robert Mckenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was great. It totally changed my mind about poetry. First poetry I've enjoyed since reading The Song of the Crow to my kids. A range of deliciously dark poems.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've rated this at 2 stars, but it's probably more 2.5, on the basis that I enjoyed half of this book.
I'm new to David Harsent poetry, keen to try out new-to-me writers, so scanned a couple of his works and picked this up (cheaper than usual) on a popular online marketplace.
The first half of the book was great, a thick gloopy soup of dark and unsettling poems with vivid imagery that were right up my dimly lit alley. The garden and blood sections I enjoyed most, and Spatchcock was spectacularly intimate.
I struggled with the longer works - particularly the final piece Elsewhere- there were some bright stanzas that stood out and I delighted in, but I found much of this final epic poem a bit of chore. A stream of conscience is fine when it gifts with ideas and thought, but this was just page after page of rambling. Maybe it's just me, maybe I didn't 'get it', maybe I was tired.
I haven't been put off, I'd read more of his stuff.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for Writing and the Present, Queen Mary University of London.

[Yates Buckley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy the rhytm and language, i am not huge poetry reader but this felt like a voice speaking to me.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry - I didn’t enjoy these all that much.

[August Bourré · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few interesting bits here and there, but not a single striking line in the whole thing. MFA poetry.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even-mannered poetics with a firm grounding in lucidity and a dash of the surreal. Harsent's collection is situated firmly in the night with all its familiar iconography: graveyards, ghosts, alcoholism, neon, etc. The extensive (and nearly tiring) use of tropes is thankfully offset by an attraction to both high diction and vernacular, to imagery both nebulous and manically microscopic. What ultimately binds the collection together is a book-length stutter of sorts: a desire for the speaker to re-enter the past as he's left it, to co-habitate with his ghosts, a desire which ultimately leads him to meet and re-meet the beloved in her myriad forms, whether tender or dangerous. Immaculate ear, improbable discourse. A good cure for the floundering, the stuck; a recount of the moment of unstopping.

[Chris Wardhaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book hard going. It's dense, heavy on the lyrical and the imaginary and feels profound without necessarily defining what it's being profound about.
Its tone is dark, as the title suggests. I feel certain it's brilliant, but I don't feel it's terribly accessible. Not a criticism as such, but a reflection perhaps of the amount of time I can devote to an individual poem right now. That said, Spatchcock is a stand out for me.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being sold off at the library. Did not mean to buy it but it opened at the page of The Apiarist Dreams of the Queen - so of course I had to. Liked the queen bee poems but then lost interest and nearly abandoned the book. Luckily I read a review by Mauberley which pointed me at Elsewhere, the last and longest poem in the book. Totally captivated. Although going back to some earlier poem still can't get a grip on them.Nonetheless 4 stars for Elsewhere.

[Ben Doeh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initial impressions:
-stunning command of the internal rhythm of a line
-a brooding, horror-stoked menace pervades this collection
-imaginative variety
-dreaminess takes away from the human reality of previous collections.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like walking into a lightless cave and listening hard. The last piece rearranged my breathing. I had to work extremely hard to stay with it, but wanted to.

[Andrew Otway · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing I can think of to say about 'Night' is: I wish I could write like this!