Harm

by Alan Jenkins

The poems in this, Alan Jenkin's third collection, speak of the harm done and suffered - most frequently in the name of love - in the course of lives gone adrift among lost causes, chance meetings and missed chances. A new directness and simplicity, and throughout, a raw urgency of personal feeling, inform a voice that is as resourceful as in Jenkin's earlier volumes, and continues to salvage a 'fugitive lyricism' (as one reviewer put it) from harsh and dissonant realities. 'By turns jocular, disquieting, sexy and inventive'-PETER READING, SUNDAY TIMES 'Jenkins' poetry is exhilarating. . . It is charged with erotic energy, rage, sorrow and confusion'-TLS 'Stylish, Savage, unforgiving'-HUGO WILLIAMS, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Jenkins has a restless following his poetry gives his readers a rocky ride, but also a rewarding one. '-PETER PORTER, OBSERVER.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 27, 1994

Reviews

[Mark Papa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forward Prize winner though it is, this collection left me cold. Caravaggio: Self-Portrait with Severed Head was a standout highlight for me.

[Russio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat of its time - 1994 - this is often lucid and very readable. At moments in reminds a little of Betjemen, Yeats, Thom Gunn. Yet the North London privilege is never too far away.

Nocturne: reminds me of Auden. Like this short poem.

Thirty Five: Intriguing voyeuristic puzzle.

Murphy's Law: the odd appeal of the lowest den. A bit tough on a fair pub.

Caravaggio...the artist, the muse, the scandal, the longevity.

Missing: REM, Police and other song lyrics spliced into a break up poem, along with verse from Thomas Wyatt. Overwrought!

Jellyfish: the implants o' the present discovered in the detritus o' the future.

Case History & Beasts: Why is he appropriating these horrific misogynist sex acts?

Someone's Life: rhythmic but discordant, as rhymes overlap and intrude on others, or vanish for a moment. An excellent poem about the changes in status in a relationship between child and parent. The final line has great immediacy.

Aubade: like Nocturne, a solid bookend for the collection.