Renaissance Normcore

by Adele Barclay

Renaissance Normcore  belts like a classically trained riot grrrl, composing catchy tunes in the key of fear and desire. Building on the dreamy emotional landscapes she plumbed in  If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You , Barclay navigates even sharper peaks and valleys in her second collection to examine the links between intimacy and power. Tracking the paradoxical impulses of anguish and joy that underpin daily life in our hostile neoliberal climate, these poems are both abject and sweet as they repurpose loss into life and test the bounds of how much a poem can hold.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published April 18, 2020

Reviews

[Domenica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tender, fierce, musical, minute, and nostalgic. It is so refreshing for a poet to incorporate pop music and culture into their poetry with care, value, and sensitivity instead of irony or glibness. It’s not a shtick or a “high-low” sort of thing, because there is no low—the outputs of Justin Bieber, Hole, Fiona Apple, Gwen Stefani, Lana Del Rey (and more) are treated with the same attention and reverence as any other figure, artwork, memory, or material and weaved in as organically as music is weaved into our consciousness. Sometimes we’re aware of it, sometimes it’s just a mood or a weather. These poems manage to be so open, vulnerable, sincere, and lyrical while still touched all over by humour and pleasure. A feat, given the raw vividness of many of Barclay’s concerns, such as trauma, sexual abuse, boundary setting, complex family dynamics, queer desire, and being a person in a body. Some poems literally made me gasp, others had me humming, some are incredibly painful to digest—and I already can’t wait to re-read them all.

[df parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Adèle Barclay is reminiscent of listening to my favourite music: I find myself immediately re-reading pieces several times, the same way I repeat my favourite songs on an album. There is a musicality to Barclay's poetry that leaves me bobbing my head along as she hits all the right notes.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Renaissance Normcore by Adele Barclay, published by Nightwood Editions in 2019 is a book of humour and vulnerability, light and dark, queer community, magic, emotional and sexual candour, anthems, shared music, pop culture and literature.

All being well, i'll be talking about this great book on The Small Machine Talks podcast later this week: http://smallmachinetalks.com/

[Natalie]

I don’t like rating poetry collections because, invariably, some poems will speak to me and others won’t. Suffice it to say, though, that I really like Adèle Barclay and I look forward to all subsequent collections.

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Renaissance Normcore" didn't sing for me the way Barclay's debut did. In fact, I would say there is a kind of dividing line right down the middle of this second collection, as the first two parts have that slightly airy-er and jumpier tone to them that is similar to "If I Were in a Cage I Would Reach Out for You." It is therefore fitting that the poem "Dear Sara 7" wraps up the first half of "Renaissance Normcore," a literal throwback to the previous collection, one that is very humorous and clever and conscious in the way it words the material into Barclay's second book. The second half, or the remaining two, parts of "Renaissance Normcore" are very rich in narrative and emotions in a way that is quite different from the first half. I felt more involved with the poems in the second half, though that is not to say I didn't enjoy the ones in the first one. They just have very distinct atmospheres and reading the entire book is a bit like shaking up one of those hourglasses filled with water and oil on opposite sides and watching them collide together, never mixing but still very much in tune with what the other is doing. Barclay's voice is distinct and unlike any other poet I've read thus far. Though I have said that about numerous poets, there is a truth to that because Barclay is unique in how distinct she is even among poets who also feel memorable, such as Klara du Plessis, who makes a brief appearance in one of these poems. I hope Barclay keeps writing and publishing books for many years to come, so that I can pick them up and swim in their beauty.

[Seven Pesos · Rating 1 out of 5]

A surefire way to win leftist bingo before you finish the first 10 pages. Zodiac signs, shitty pop music from the 2000s, open relationships, shitty pop music from the 2010s. This author feels like someone who overshares very personal information after a few drinks at a house party. Way too much leftist virtue signaling. Millennial trash poetry, feels like something I'd read in a university student magazine written by some depressed 19 year old who smokes cigarettes, but they're not really depressed and just angsty. Tarot cards, quirky references to alt 90s TV shows, Canadian radio programs, failed relationships. WAY WAY WAY too much leftist virtue signaling. There was a small handful of poems which felt sincere and largely avoided all the excesses mentioned above. A very small handful. Bought this for a buck hoping for normcore, left wanting my money back.

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two short passages from Renaissance Normcore:

*

you seem kinder / age humbles as it dulls

*

I don’t always know
what I think until I say it
and then I say it again
to commit it to memory

[Maverick Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry books are something I don't really "finish" reading but revisit time and time again when I have a quiet moment and am feeling something. Renaissance Normcore is a great accompaniment to those times and Adele Barclay's writing is intimate and striking.

[David Ly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Adèle has outdone herself in this collection.

[Joce Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Laura Malley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing poetry. I can't stop thinking about this book.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing and offensive to read, a little too dark and vulgar for me.