Hello

by Crispin Best

Hello is the debut collection of poems by Crispin Best, whose unmistakable voice may be the closest we have to a contemporary poetic vernacular.

Behind these poems one senses the presence of a real person, someone who feels pain and delight and finds a way to talk about both. The baby chameleon that turns up at the end of Hello could be the book’s totem animal: a creature whose flamboyance is also its camouflage. For, despite their many heart-rending moments, these poems have fun with masks and voices; they are awash with ventriloquised 90s pop-culture and contemporary media tropes that blur the line between candour and karaoke.

Above all, Crispin’s poems capture a feeling of awe at the weird miracle of being alive for a bit, however briefly, in a world in which nothing is more or less important than watching Cool Runnings in the bathtub, or stopping to enjoy the colour of your own socks – a world in which ‘if a tree falls in the forest / that’s fine.’

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2019

Reviews

[Ruxandra (4fără15)]

i have been thinking about the universe
even distant fireworks
make me think of the people who lit them

i can’t help it

[Alex George]

Rereard 3:

Never a bad time to bang this out again

Reread 2:

Done!

It really is the perfect book for New Year's Day

[SJ Alexander]

poems that find a way inside and then just sit there, a book that feels both light and monumental at the same time.

[Carolyn DeCarlo]

Crispin Best's poetry is an exploration of the uncanny through the lens of the banal. His writing has been influencing my own for about a decade now, and I am still caught off guard by his attention to detail, his ability to evoke whimsy through his short lines and his verse, and his immense heart and the gentle care he takes with his subjects. Even though Crispin's poetry feels spontaneous, almost child-like, it is highly intentional. His jokes are hefty and they land well; and the only reason the reader can feel as much as they do is because of the way Crispin structures his poems and guides you through them. Whatever looks simple is based on years of work. It is hard for me to believe he hasn't had a debut collection yet, or that this is a 'debut'. It is a solid collection that I would recommend to anyone, and one I will be returning to again and again.

[Chris Bookley]

Offbeat.

[Goodreeds User]

lucid and gentle and strange and warm and kind

[Sarah]

I adore this collection. HELLO made me laugh, out loud, several times, and there are so many lines I like. I like that all of the material a reader needs is in the poems; the focus isn't on piecing a narrative together. Individual lines have interesting turns and are strange and thought-provoking conceptually, which is what I think I value most in poems.

These poems take place in the regular, mundane world, and reference ordinary things: golf, jeans, knees, cows, memes, web browsers, pizza, occasionally invoking things from bygone times (like an orrery) or plays at Olde Englishe ("o besunglassed sun in the summer"). The thesis seems to be something like "Being alive is a real trip, huh?" and I love the sense of wonder and pretend-misunderstanding that colors so much of the collection: "what if v neck stood for / very neck" "no one ever / called me a flute / and blew in my ear" "i tell my computer i'm not a robot / when it asks / because who else is going to"

[Always Becominging]

I’d been waiting for this collection for a long time and it didn’t disappoint. There are very few poets who I can have this much fun reading. Crispin’s voice is calm, comforting, goofy, and hilarious. I’ve read many of these poems over the years in different forms, but reading them again here they feel as though they’ve been honed over the years so that only what is absolutely necessary remains. Sometimes a joke about a wheelie bin is absolutely necessary. There are one liners in here that I will never grow sick of, that I will read on my deathbed and laugh at.

[M]

His poems are fresh and light like a bite of a green apple, and they are hilarious to the brim. I can barely remember such a specifically crisp & amusing encounter with a poetry book.

“and you can hold a tiny leaf and say ‘leaflet’
and i can listen to a crow talk and it is beautiful music
and you can fall in love with quiet forest water noises in this forest
and i can like animals and you are one” /58

“but tonight i am a power station
in your countryside
and on a scale of alive
we are alive” /11

[Jack]

ghosts don't kill people
because imagine how awkward it would be afterwards

The best book I've read for a while. A breath of fresh, original, hilarious air; cannot recommend this highly enough.

[Phil]

lol

[Serge ♆ Neptune]

Favourites: Poem in Which I Mention at the Last Moment an Orrery, My God and the sequence 'But Do Dolphins Want to Swim With Me.'

[Azza]

Crispin is one of the greatest poets

[Jemmy]

Loved it like I love being online; like my body is holding my eyes and thumbs against my will but what else would I be doing anyway.

[Jane Simmons-Thomas]

3.5/5

[Emily]

3.8, just very cleverly done. Some of the form kind of went over my head, though.

[⏺]

This book makes me actively happy