The Observances

by Kate Miller

In the informal rituals of the tide remaking its tideline, of a painter absorbed in the act of painting, or of an old couple greeting the night, the English poet Kate Miller sees and charts the creative process at work. As its title suggests, Miller’s striking début collection explores perception, the poet’s eye and ear trained on distances that stretch beyond comfort zones. This is a book of poems is full of movement: even quiet reflections on home and family life are rarely still. Throughout the collection Miller dwells on the unfixed and restless image and shows herself as subject to it—to the difficult illusion of physical energy in sculpture, to the changeability of skies, and the insistent rhythm and presence of the sea.

Genres: Poetry

85 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2015

Reviews

[Philippe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to believe this is a début collection. So assured is Kate Miller’s tracing of a prodigiously varied itinerary that draws an arc over a multitude of eras, locales, dispositions, habitats. Miller’s speech is unsentimental but rich and sensual, an iron fist in a velvet glove. The innuendo is finely dosed to keep the poems suspended in mystery but shuns hermeticism. I’ve revisited this collection many times and it is impossible to select one or a few favourites as I keep changing my mind. Just one that has been written with a painter’s or a photographer’s eye, overflowing with sensuous detail, brimming with a youthful thirst for life and putting that vitality extra in relief by contrasting it with the dormancy of sculpted matter:

Against This Light

You ask me, Marie-Amélie, am I the youth
who said goodbye last month?
To answer you
I’ll paint myself against this light, immersed in
your first words from home, tempered in the blaze of blue
and gold that is April sky in Rome.
In my high-ceilinged room the window opens
on a crinkled map of roofs and parapets.
Swallows clip the sill. In their bright air
I thrive.
I ache to think of you - confined,
the Cast Room stove not lit since Easter,
among the plaster limbs the master favours - frozen
forms I’ve left behind.
Everything I see
if I go down to watch the market in the Campo
moves: knives and scales flash at fish stalls
decked with lemons, to the thrum of forge and stable,
fresh stone-dust loads loaves and cheeses, and a girl
in carmine slips into the shade beyond a column
out of the flap of sun-bleached linen.
I own I’ve fallen
more than half in love with Romans. Young or old,
they hold themselves as proud as any figure in a frieze.
I’m hungry for the way a woman turns her head,
the telling language of a trader’s hand.
Alive or carved, they’re definite and grand,
even in the shadows of an alley, warm.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Observances is a book of poetry by Kate Miller. The author presents many different types of poems, a varying range of emotions and incredible scenes. Each work is like a little, unique story.

My first thought is that I've never read anything quite like this. I appreciate that the work is very complex. There are differing layers to many of the poems, some the obvious descriptions and those which we must consider further to understand the poetry better. The author seems to have an incredible respect of nature, giving notice to many things that others might overlook. One of my favourite works within the book is "The Hoopoes Have Come Home", a dedication to the personality and behaviour of the bird. In addition to nature, the author also discusses the various characters of poems. Another poem that I like quite a bit is "Minding The Antiquarian Bookseller's House"; I enjoy the personalisation of the characters. Though we are left with little detail, it is up to the reader to consider the reasons for the scene and events within the work.


Overall, I liked the book very much. The work has great depth and many layers, with interesting scenes and observations. Admittedly, there are words and references to things that I do not understand at the moment. However, I hope to re-read the book again in future, at which point I might understand and enjoy it better. Otherwise, I enjoyed the work and will keep an eye out for more work by the same author.

I won a copy of this book via a First Reads giveaway and these are just my honest thoughts on it.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miller has a way with a title. Her name of the collection combines ideas of observation and ceremony. I especially enjoyed "Girl Running Still," suggesting both the stillness and enduringness of statuary.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned:
Embarrassed to say that I read the contents pages as a poem at first... I think that’s I may have enjoyed that one the most! Shame as it contains three of my favourite subjects within - clouds, books and letter writing

[scarlettraces · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firmly within my strike zone.