Samarkand Book

This reader remembers thirtysomething Kate Clanchy's first collection of poetry: Slattern. As marvellously readable as it was gorgeously bittersweet, full of sardonic, emotive lines, between 1996 and 1997 Slattern rightly won just about every prize going for books by debutante British poets. Such a beginning was always going to be hard to match. f poetry really is the new rock-n-roll, then Samarkand is the equivalent of "the difficult second album." Clanchy has held her position, even if this new volume perhaps lacks the same freshness of tone as Slattern. Some of her similes are as lyrically acute as ever: a fallen wasp's nest is like a "burst city of the poor", a much-loved grandfather's bald scalp is as "grand and mottled as a planet." Individual poems also stand out: the sweet and affecting "Content", for instance, adroitly compares the temporary happiness of young married love to a breather grabbed on a cliff-top hike, when the two lovers "boxed in mist, conscious of just our feet and hands" pause to let the upcoming hills "reveal themselves and be veiled again / quietly, with the prevailing wind." Another poem, "The Mirror", riffs dexterously on the strange agreeableness of furnishing a home, when in a new mirror the young couple look, inexplicably, like "the Arnolfinis at a football match." But in this suburban bliss maybe lies the problem. Where Slattern's doomy romanticism afforded a certain narrative drive, Samarkand is looser, less focused, perhaps too relaxed. There's even a hint of Bridget Jones's "smug mermaids" in a line like "Adults, luckless since they are not us." It's tough to advise a poet to be less happy, to suffer more for her art and the reader's pleasure, but Clanchy should not turn away from her dark side. Reader's new to Clanchy and Samarkand will enjoy the accessible style, the wistful humour, the range and width of interests. --Sean ThomasRead More