Of Piscator: Poems

by Martin Corless-Smith

Corless-Smith, Martin

Genres: Poetry

79 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corless-Smith seems closer to the home sources of his inspiration here than in some of his later books: the minor English lyric, short, thin, and never far from the pastoral, loosed from its metrical corset and numbing set of rhymes. There’s enough disjunctive blurring to make the celandine and swallow’s eaves safe for contemporary consumption, and his love for the odd ingles of English, distressed sometimes with archaic spellings, courts but keeps preciosity at bay.

There’s something in the artful appliqué of postmodern, post-Language sensibilities over well-worked lyric matter that put me in mind of a gastropub decked out as the cozy local; winningly familiar, but scrubbed and seasoned for modern tastes. But I’m glad Martin’s learned the bird names so I don’t have to, and that he sets them singing in these poems with such clear affection and care.