Riverrun

by Alan Baker

Light wear to the covers. Shipped from the UK in recyclable card packaging.

68 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

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Reviews

[Thomas Goddard]

How do you review a book that seems to morph upon each new reading of it? At first I didn't enjoy how intimately bound to the contemporary world it seemed, I prefer poetry that is more naturalistic.

I’ll keep this one very short. I liked it. I want to take it with me when I next go on a river walk.

The images are vibrant, clear and convey a sense of momentum. The language is simple with little leaps into more exciting vocabulary in the phases that directly draw on the natural world (as opposed to the urban).

All in all, pretty good. I’ll read it a few more times before I make any final judgement. Might rate it higher, but I think it sits well where it is for now.

[Julie Gardner]

I've read this through once and I will definitely go back to it - not least because we're discussing it at Nottingham Stanza on Saturday. But I have reservations about the format. The lack of punctuation makes it difficult to read. There's no chance to stop and think - and when I did, I felt as if I'd lost the thread. I had a sense of repetition, of ideas floating away. I decided to just read it and by the time I'd got to the end I was liking it more than I had expected. My plan is to read it again more slowly. Watch this space!

[Neil Fulwood]

A book-length sequence which doesn’t so much celebrate the River Trent as warily investigate it. The poetics are muscular and sinuous, the intelligence focused and incisive.