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lode
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
Published July 22, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 12, 2025
"The sheep are loud about their lambs/and no cars come./It's tea-time/in the small eternity of lockdown."
Organised into sections that deal loosely with the Second World War and family history, lockdown, and nature poetry, LODE finds a subtlety and meditative depth that connects these subjects. Elements of this collection strike me as contending with the ghosts of T.S. Eliot, with Allnutt drawing from a rich body of allusions (including quotations from Eliot's work) to craft her verse, though inviting a greater degree of personal emotion compared to Eliot's Modernist coolness. There are some wonderful haiku-like short verses that deal with the experience of lockdown, and imaginative reimaginings of her family history in the first section of the book (the appendix to this collection, which glosses the biographical details at play, is a helpful accompaniment), though my favourite poems from this collection are "The way she remembered it" and "The Song of Arachnid", narrative poems that respectively reimagine the story of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus and the tale of Arachne.
Organised into sections that deal loosely with the Second World War and family history, lockdown, and nature poetry, LODE finds a subtlety and meditative depth that connects these subjects. Elements of this collection strike me as contending with the ghosts of T.S. Eliot, with Allnutt drawing from a rich body of allusions (including quotations from Eliot's work) to craft her verse, though inviting a greater degree of personal emotion compared to Eliot's Modernist coolness. There are some wonderful haiku-like short verses that deal with the experience of lockdown, and imaginative reimaginings of her family history in the first section of the book (the appendix to this collection, which glosses the biographical details at play, is a helpful accompaniment), though my favourite poems from this collection are "The way she remembered it" and "The Song of Arachnid", narrative poems that respectively reimagine the story of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus and the tale of Arachne.
December 25, 2025
I love the constrained lyricism of her poetry, that has clear echos of Eliot and Heaney in it. Favorites include I love this poor earth for I have known no other and The way she remembered it. I will be returning to these poems again and again.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews