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"* 'Praise for Transformatrix: A rising star.' - Observer * 'Thrilling. Has a multi-dimensional richness. It's a bold, brassy work.' - Independent on Sunday * 'Draws on rap, jive and disco rhythms as much as the formal subtleties of free verse. Agbabi is a fine poet, and her linguistic wit carries satirical fire.' - Daily Telegraph * 'Combines cutting satire and outright celebration.' - Big Issue"
Observer
Praise for Transformatrix: A rising star.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stupendously amazing - again,
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This review is from: Bloodshot Monochrome (Paperback)
I've taught Patience Agbabi's Transformatrix in my university classes for years, and I'm delighted to see her new work. 'Vicious Circle' is a great achievement, a corona of sonnets based on film noir. I'm looking forward to teaching it next semester to my undergraduates!If you ever have a chance, please go see Agbabi perform - her poetry comes even more to life in person.
5.0 out of 5 stars
wit, elegance, polish, and politics,
By
This review is from: Bloodshot Monochrome (Paperback)
I love this book. It's beautifully made, for a start - lovely to look at handle. Great cover - I wish more slim volumes were turned out like this.The elegance goes all through. If you've seen Agbabi on stage, you'll know that her performances are proper performances: it takes real sophistication to be so immediate. I didn't see how she could translate that to the stage - but now I do. Through craft. This book is all sonnets. Autobiographical one, dramatic monologue ones - I really like those - problem page ones, and a sequence - a corona - of sonnets which also tell a modern horror story.Agbabi uses the tight form as a stage to display the full variety of her experience and imagination. I liked all of them, and liked the central, unwritten claim of the book, too, which seemed to me to be something like 'I the black woman, the Northen Soul enthusiast, also own English Poetry. My experience belongs here, in these forms, not just in perfromance. And I demonstrate this now, with my extreme virtuosity'. Power to her arm.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Poet's Romper Room--Welcome!,
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This review is from: Bloodshot Monochrome (Paperback)
It's a thin book. However, if you're about to become the romper room for someone else's narratives, neuroses and hang-ups, it's cheery that the book is at least thin. They won't be here long. Maybe you can cope.So Patience enters your romper room. 'Shots', the first of the five parts of this poetry collection, turns it around. She wants neither to invade, nor to assault. You've been invited into her sitting room, sat down with a glass of wine, and she gently soothes you with her lyrical voice. Don't be afraid, she says, I've serious things to say, but I'll say them gently, whilst the cat of my metre sits on your lap and purrs. It's okay to laugh, she says, when you get to 'On turning on the TV...' I'm glad you did, and was afraid you wouldn't. So that by the end of 'Shots', you want to stay some more and listen. This is as well, because the next two parts, 'Monologues' and 'Problem Pages' are not quite as successful. 'Josephine Baker Finds Herself' is a genuinely clever, successful poem. 'Yore my type' is amusing, but you have to wonder how successfully Patience has entered this other world, or are we sharing a misconception of an alien lifestyle? 'Problem Pages', where Patience has famous writers set her questions which she then answers, may appeal to some, and be a useful resource for literature teachers, but it left me cold after the first couple. In 'Blood Letters', Patience seems to return to letting us share her experiences. Not as comfortable as 'Shots', but we know each other by now, and it's okay to dare a bit and exchange more personal stuff. Exchange? Reading a book of poems? Yeah, you'll be surprised how you start talking back. Until, with 'Black and White and Red All Over', you're shamed into silence. Momentarily. Patience is not a vicious woman. The last section, 'Vicious Circle', is a long work. Fourteen paired stanzas, highly structured, clearly thought out. I'm not sure I got the story first time around, but as I made my goodbyes and left this writer's room, buttoning an imaginary coat against an imaginary wind, I didn't feel I'd wasted time. I wanted to visit again, maybe ask some more questions. A good time out.
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