Quennets

by Philip Terry

The poetic form used in these pages is one invented by Raymond Queneau in his 1975 book Morale élémentaire; it has come to be called the “quennet”, after its inventor, as it has one more line than a sonnet. The three sequences which make up this collection experiment with psychogeographical quennets inspired by walking around the Essex estuary and the Berlin Wall Trail, with the final sequence retracing the steps of W.G. Sebald through Suffolk.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2016

Reviews

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual and nimble on the one hand, more than a bit static on the other. The quennet or quenette form is static in nature, except for the refrains which seem, in contrast to the adjective-noun phrases of the other stanzas, positively in flight. Those refrains, in fact, constitute a five-star collection, or very close to one. But the plod of the remaining stanzas becomes almost deadly. Better read in bits than at a swoop. Sharply observed throughout, even in the pile-up of phrases. And admirable for not being yet another solipsistic massage of the author and his id.