Corridor: Poems

by Saskia Hamilton

"Hamilton is able to sustain a complex narrative through stripped-down poems . . . leavened by a wry humor." ― The New York Times Book Review

I wanted to read an essay in your wrist.
The afternoon seemed endless. Out the window,
a lane to the right was bending away,
taking with it the figure moving down it.
Alone for a quarter of an hour,
looking in, plotting the argument,
all the marks of lucidity
and brevity in that attempt,
that benefit of
the true but unlikely moment.
―from "Summered" Corridor , Saskia Hamilton's third collection, is a study of motion and time. Its glanced landscapes, its lives seen in passing, render the immeasurable in broken narratives. These poems are succinct in order to travel quickly―they have unexpected distances within their reach. They are dauntless and alert in their apprehension of the natural kingdom at the frontier of so many unnatural ones. And they inhabit the realm of contemplation which, for Hamilton, is charged with eros.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published May 6, 2014

Reviews

[Laurie Neighbors · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are gorgeous, lean poems, ordered with coherence. Even when the subject is something as solid as a pot or as technical as a recording, there is an underlying sense of beautiful decay. I'll be reading these over and over.

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of nature poems. A lot of not-muchness. It's comprised of three sections, and the only pieces I liked are the first two of the second section. Not sure if that means anything or if it's just a coincidence.

Favorites:
"Once"
"Rain Begins"

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been awhile since I've read a book of poetry, and like viewing artwork in a museum, I approached and experienced Saskia Hamilton's writing from multiple angles. I read her poems aloud and listened to them with different cadences and inflections. I wanted to experience the fleeting moments that are often highlighted in her writing.

Corridor: Poems is divided into three sections, each having a collection of poems that possess an observational quality such as snippets of conversation between dinner party guests or a woman sitting across a former lover. Hamilton reexamines the mundane often through stripped down, minimalistic descriptions. This stark way of writing infuses her poems with a Delphic quality, one in which the reader may or may not appreciate.

Nature also plays a key role in Hamilton's poetry. Much of the first section pertained to narrative revolving around transition and rural living. Underneath the simplicity of bucolic happenings lies a rich tapestry of emotions in which Hamilton freely explores.

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes me want to go back and reread her first two collections. These are strange, quiet, luminous, perfectly-themselves poems, somehow lonely but also deeply intimate with the people and landscapes they inhabit. They're small, but full of space and silence.

[Anthony Immergluck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book in college, and it was a favorite of mine. Since learning of the poet's death, I've meant to reread it, and I'm so glad I did. I love it as much as I did four hundred years ago. And I was surprised how much of it I remembered.

These poems are hard to "sell." They're almost radically old-fashioned and gimmick-less, full of mystery and obfuscation. The subject matter tends to be some combination of time passing over a landscape and psychological unrest. As weird as it sounds, these are claustrophobic landscape poems, lonely and isolated and interior. They could take place anytime in the 20th century, really, in dreams or memories or reality. Muscular little puzzles of feeling and image, combining a bit of Dickinson with a bit of Tu Fu. There's humor and sex from time to time, but way off in the distance. You have to squint.

I've heard other people call Hamilton's poems soothing, which isn't necessarily how they land for me. I find them a little spooky, actually, like wind on old windows or bats fluttering away through the trees. But I think both reactions have to do with the poems' mystical, meditative quality. Symbolic, psychoanalytic, yearning for truth and meaning. Hamilton uses an interesting mix of plain talk and weirdo antiquated spelling bee words I've never seen before in my life, and it contributes to a compelling voice that I'll call, "humble, soft-spoken farmer with an ancient, otherworldly secret." In any case, these are good poems to reread. They're way bigger than they look.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautiful, quiet, and spare poems exploring motion, time, and broken narratives across landscapes/the natural world

[Margaryta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Something is missing from these poems, which could've been so moving and beautiful, the way the blurb promised. But they weren't all that great. Mostly there was a lot of fantastic and soothing imagery that centered around the countryside with a very wintery atmosphere. But it was hard to find something beyond that it the poems. "Rain Begins" and "After Gewritu secgad" were the two poems which I loved in their entirety, from the mood they evoked and the imagery they utilized. The other poems in the collection felt much choppier and disjointed, a couple even a little flat. It border-lined between sincere and forceful that i find somewhat off-putting in poetry. I think I should've taken this out from the library first before rushing to buy a copy. It'll go on the shelf for now to marinate - perhaps in a few months/years time I'll enjoy them more, or be much more satisfied with the mellow and somewhat uneventful atmosphere of the poems.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of poetry started with a few interesting poems, but then seemed to get weaker as I read more, and completely lost my interest before I completed the 60 plus pages that make up this book. I read this book at the bus stop today with the temperature at 36 degree and in a stiff wind. So the setting may have made it more challenging for these poems to impact me with any force. I understand that it's difficult to write a collection of poems that consistently engage or command the interest of all readers. The same is true for any kind of writing. I try to write poetry myself and have been doing it for a few decades, but only have a few poems that even I think are somewhat successful. But the effort itself can be rewarding, so I hope this poet will keep writing.

[Anna (lion_reads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know much about poetry, but this is one of the few poetry collections I felt I understood on a deeper level. I was not in love with every poem in this collection, but there are few gold nuggets in there. I was particularly impressed with Hamilton's ability to create the very atmosphere shown in the picture: foggy and quiet, twisting away from the reader.

[Cee Spind · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Move it (the hive) five miles and they'll die of confounding..." Like her awkward use of language and sense of place.

[Brian Wasserman · Rating 1 out of 5]

pastoral, archaic, esoteric.. a floating pond of poems that are uneasy to interpret, not for me