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I May Be Stupid But I'm Not That Stupid
I May Be Stupid But I’m Not That Stupid brings together six contrasting but complementary poem sequences by ‘this brilliant lyricist of human darkness’ (Fiona Sampson) relating to family, fear, foreboding and felicity: Elective Mute is about autism and happiness; My Mother and Me on the Eve of the Chess Championships, about a mother who prefers lettuces to life; Fishtank (Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice), about a brother who is somebody else; Lambchop, about a creepy old man; The Boxer Klitschko, on finding refuge with swimming, dogs and a jovial uncle; and Helpless with Laughter, on what the parts of the body have to say about themselves. Like all of Selima Hill’s work, all six sequences in the book chart ‘extreme experience with a dazzling excess’ (Deryn Rees-Jones), with startling humour and surprising combinations of homely and outlandish.
- GenresPoetry
149 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2019
5 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Selima Hill
39 books14 followersSelima Hill (born 13 October 1945 in Hampstead) is a British poet.
Selima Hill grew up in rural England and Wales. She read Moral Sciences at New Hall, Cambridge University (1965-7). She regularly collaborates with artists and has worked on multimedia projects with the Royal Ballet, Welsh National Opera and BBC Bristol. She is a tutor at the Poetry School in London, and has taught creative writing in hospitals and prisons.
Selima Hill won first prize in the 1988 Arvon Foundation/Observer International Poetry Competition for her long poem The Accumulation of Small Acts of Kindness, and her 1997 collection, Violet, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year), the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. Her book of poetry, Bunny (2001), a series of poems about a young girl growing up in the 1950s, won the Whitbread Poetry Award. A selected poems: Gloria, was published in 2008.
She was a Fellow at University of Exeter.
Selima Hill lives in Lyme Regis. Her most recent book of poetry is People Who Like Meatballs (2012), shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).
(from Wikipedia)
Selima Hill grew up in rural England and Wales. She read Moral Sciences at New Hall, Cambridge University (1965-7). She regularly collaborates with artists and has worked on multimedia projects with the Royal Ballet, Welsh National Opera and BBC Bristol. She is a tutor at the Poetry School in London, and has taught creative writing in hospitals and prisons.
Selima Hill won first prize in the 1988 Arvon Foundation/Observer International Poetry Competition for her long poem The Accumulation of Small Acts of Kindness, and her 1997 collection, Violet, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year), the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. Her book of poetry, Bunny (2001), a series of poems about a young girl growing up in the 1950s, won the Whitbread Poetry Award. A selected poems: Gloria, was published in 2008.
She was a Fellow at University of Exeter.
Selima Hill lives in Lyme Regis. Her most recent book of poetry is People Who Like Meatballs (2012), shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 28, 2024
I prefer short poetry. It's potent, quotable and quick to digest.
Selima Hill seems to specialise in that. I May Be Stupid But I'm Not That Stupid is a varied collection of verses for all occasions and complaints. While there were a few here that I liked from start to finish, there were just as many that did little for me. At times it felt like Hill had written these poems as a daily challenge, which would explain the everyday subject matter and the daydream logic. She seems to think a lot about cows and earwigs, not to mention the synaesthesia of certain phonemes.
While this eccentricity holds a certain appeal, I did find myself becoming bored of the ruminative brevity and the shallow impact it had on me. However, all it took to change that concern was to read one poem aloud and catch the 'thisness' of a certain line or phrase to convince me of Hill's brilliance once again. She has a way of seeing things from a different angle that I consider poetry's unique selling point and the true mark of a master of the form.
On the whole, I find this collection to be inconsistent but thought-provoking in all the right places. I recommend I May Be Stupid But I'm Not That Stupid, to those who like pithy observations with strong internal rhyme and performable scansion.
Notable Poems
• Football - I can empathise with the nervousness in this verse about standing on a pitch.
• The Huggers - The final stanza makes this for me: a beautiful resignation to the needs of others.
• The Precious Moments of My Mother's Life - A verse that hits me with great resonance right now.
Selima Hill seems to specialise in that. I May Be Stupid But I'm Not That Stupid is a varied collection of verses for all occasions and complaints. While there were a few here that I liked from start to finish, there were just as many that did little for me. At times it felt like Hill had written these poems as a daily challenge, which would explain the everyday subject matter and the daydream logic. She seems to think a lot about cows and earwigs, not to mention the synaesthesia of certain phonemes.
While this eccentricity holds a certain appeal, I did find myself becoming bored of the ruminative brevity and the shallow impact it had on me. However, all it took to change that concern was to read one poem aloud and catch the 'thisness' of a certain line or phrase to convince me of Hill's brilliance once again. She has a way of seeing things from a different angle that I consider poetry's unique selling point and the true mark of a master of the form.
On the whole, I find this collection to be inconsistent but thought-provoking in all the right places. I recommend I May Be Stupid But I'm Not That Stupid, to those who like pithy observations with strong internal rhyme and performable scansion.
Notable Poems
• Football - I can empathise with the nervousness in this verse about standing on a pitch.
• The Huggers - The final stanza makes this for me: a beautiful resignation to the needs of others.
• The Precious Moments of My Mother's Life - A verse that hits me with great resonance right now.
August 2, 2023
An interesting collection. Moving (see below Underwater), absurdly funny (see below My Uncle’s Bread-Slicer) at times, tedious and repetitive at others (Fishtank and Lambchop were my least favourite sequences: the former about her brother, the latter about an elderly gentleman). Selima Hill’s body of work mainly covers the topic of her relationship to her mother and her marginal observations of daily details, swimming as an escape.
“Underwater
I introduce my body to the fish
who no one’s told I don’t know who I am;
how, outside, in the air, I’ve got a face
I struggle to arrange and rearrange”
“My Uncle’s Bread-Slicer
I could watch it slicing bread all day!
It’s powder blue - like the Virgin Mary
which is odd because the Virgin Mary
would never stay indoors and slice and slice”
For future reference (mainly for myself), these were among my favourites of the collection
Elective Mute: I’m Sorry But I Think I Might Be Real, Summer Days, Depth Change, You and Me, Havoc and Graciousness, Octopuses
My another and Me on the Eve of the Chess Championships: This is How I Write About My Mother, My Mother and the Oceans, Water for My Mother
Fishtank: My Brother’s Flute, My Brother’s Heart
Lambchop: Girls, Because He Never Sleeps, Suddenly One Morning
The Boxer Klitschko: Goose,Underwater, My Uncle’s Bread-Slicer, What My Mother Wanted
Helpless with Laughter: Biceps, Body, Brain, Skull, Thumbs, Wrists
“Underwater
I introduce my body to the fish
who no one’s told I don’t know who I am;
how, outside, in the air, I’ve got a face
I struggle to arrange and rearrange”
“My Uncle’s Bread-Slicer
I could watch it slicing bread all day!
It’s powder blue - like the Virgin Mary
which is odd because the Virgin Mary
would never stay indoors and slice and slice”
For future reference (mainly for myself), these were among my favourites of the collection
Elective Mute: I’m Sorry But I Think I Might Be Real, Summer Days, Depth Change, You and Me, Havoc and Graciousness, Octopuses
My another and Me on the Eve of the Chess Championships: This is How I Write About My Mother, My Mother and the Oceans, Water for My Mother
Fishtank: My Brother’s Flute, My Brother’s Heart
Lambchop: Girls, Because He Never Sleeps, Suddenly One Morning
The Boxer Klitschko: Goose,Underwater, My Uncle’s Bread-Slicer, What My Mother Wanted
Helpless with Laughter: Biceps, Body, Brain, Skull, Thumbs, Wrists
January 27, 2025
“To other people, people are a comfort. / To me they are a threat”... Selima Hill’s hefty collection of poems, I May Be Stupid But I’m Not That Stupid, is six long poem sequences presented one after another. To clarify, I’m not ordinarily a fan of too many short poems in a collection; I like variety, and this collection boasted easily over a hundred poems that were each two couplets long. I enjoyed many of the poems that deviated from this, partly just for the novelty, but struggled with a feeling approaching monotony throughout. That said, Hill writes wonderfully of weird experiences, of navigating the world and its people as a person very much outside its more ordinary boundaries, and her gift for the succinct is not to be underestimated. Also: title and cover combination alone won me over.
July 21, 2020
Bonkers and beautiful and brilliant.
November 12, 2020
One of the most intriguingly brilliant collections I've read in a while. What an introduction!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews