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‘Extremely powerful and varied … Holland has both the clarity for the reader and the mastery of language to say what she means in a way that makes the brain tingle with both shock and pleasure … This collection is outstanding.’ (Angela Topping Stride Magazine )
I reached the fourth section of the book, the Boudicca sequence, and everything went electric … There’s a touch of Vicki Feaver about the violence and the cool delight in blood and innards, but the work is quite distinctive. I didn’t for one moment think about feminist directions — only the inner rage of the emotion, the amazing sweep of the imagery and the way I was dashing from poem to poem, completely compelled. (Helena Nelson Ambit )
Jane Holland’s Boudicca & Co is a book of adventurous, resonant inventions. As the title suggests, it offers a new view from the interior – of both country and psyche – in which history and geography are co-opted in effortless interplay. It’s a work of synthesis, and of poetic and emotional maturity, in which Holland emerges as a true craftswoman, a supple and graceful thinker with an effortless grasp of line, at the heart of the English lyric tradition. (Fiona Sampson Poetry Review )
‘… we need only compare Holland’s work with the anti-war ‘poetry’ of Harold Pinter to gain some indication of how rich and rewarding her response to modern conflict is – by shifting methods towards the imaginative and narrative elements of poetry, rather than the rhetorical and political. In this sense, the ‘Boudicca’ sequence has a great deal in common with David Harsent’s Legion, which represents a similar attempt by a non-combatant poet to engage intelligently with the realities of war. This is, frankly, an outstanding collection, and Holland, as a result, can now count herself amongst the front rank of contemporary British poets. (Simon Turner Gists and Piths )
I reached the fourth section of the book, the Boudicca sequence, and everything went electric … There’s a touch of Vicki Feaver about the violence and the cool delight in blood and innards, but the work is quite distinctive. I didn’t for one moment think about feminist directions — only the inner rage of the emotion, the amazing sweep of the imagery and the way I was dashing from poem to poem, completely compelled. (Helena Nelson Ambit )
Jane Holland’s Boudicca & Co is a book of adventurous, resonant inventions. As the title suggests, it offers a new view from the interior – of both country and psyche – in which history and geography are co-opted in effortless interplay. It’s a work of synthesis, and of poetic and emotional maturity, in which Holland emerges as a true craftswoman, a supple and graceful thinker with an effortless grasp of line, at the heart of the English lyric tradition. (Fiona Sampson Poetry Review )
‘… we need only compare Holland’s work with the anti-war ‘poetry’ of Harold Pinter to gain some indication of how rich and rewarding her response to modern conflict is – by shifting methods towards the imaginative and narrative elements of poetry, rather than the rhetorical and political. In this sense, the ‘Boudicca’ sequence has a great deal in common with David Harsent’s Legion, which represents a similar attempt by a non-combatant poet to engage intelligently with the realities of war. This is, frankly, an outstanding collection, and Holland, as a result, can now count herself amongst the front rank of contemporary British poets. (Simon Turner Gists and Piths )
Product Description
Jane Holland’s third collection, Camper Van Blues, is a book of journeys, both real and imaginary. The title sequence is a British road movie told through poems, one woman and her dog alone in a camper van, each jump-cut taking the reader further into the interior of an addictive, self-destructive personality. In a sequence of brief and highly visual poems, Holland explores a midnight landscape of motorways, truck stops and lay-bys, touching by turns on the issues of loneliness, drug abuse and living with depression. Taut and spare, a note of gritty humour pervades this tale of life on the road for the single woman.
The central poem in this new collection is a bold and political reworking of the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Wanderer, which is both a personal elegy and a lament for fallen soldiers by an unnamed ‘solitary drifter’. Other poems here link into that sense of loss and bereavement, and the aftermath of relationship breakdown which can lead to social isolation.
Later in the collection, Holland returns to a lighter, more lyrical note, handling poems about love, relationships and sexual attraction with confidence. There’s a return to personal mythologies too, following on from her two earlier collections, with a number of pieces based around English folklore and Celtic symbolism. Holland also explores the growing threat of climate change in several powerful ecopoems, two of which deal with the dramatic events surrounding the floods at Boscastle in 2004, where she was once a resident.
The central poem in this new collection is a bold and political reworking of the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Wanderer, which is both a personal elegy and a lament for fallen soldiers by an unnamed ‘solitary drifter’. Other poems here link into that sense of loss and bereavement, and the aftermath of relationship breakdown which can lead to social isolation.
Later in the collection, Holland returns to a lighter, more lyrical note, handling poems about love, relationships and sexual attraction with confidence. There’s a return to personal mythologies too, following on from her two earlier collections, with a number of pieces based around English folklore and Celtic symbolism. Holland also explores the growing threat of climate change in several powerful ecopoems, two of which deal with the dramatic events surrounding the floods at Boscastle in 2004, where she was once a resident.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Crafted poems of loneliness,
By Abby Darker (Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Camper Van Blues (Salt Modern Poets) (Hardcover)
There are poems of terrible loneliness in the aptly titled 'Camper Van Blues', where the narrator is deliberately marooned in her van, away from the 'velvet lagoons' of the dark outside. For company she has cigarettes, vodka, memory and, it seems, lakes of rain.Jane Holland's poems are crafted and full of vibrant language and observation. It's a relief to this reader to read 21st century poems; poetry that contains tarmac and tail lights, windscreens and oil, as much as natural things and the inner musings of the heart and mind. There's a masculine/feminine thing at work here in this hard, moving poetry that is refreshing and unusual. These are the kind of poems that make you want to question the author: Did this or that really happen? Is the 'aching rage' over yet? Salt must be congratulated on the physicality of the book - it's a gorgeous object and does justice to Holland's immense talent.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended,
By Marion McCready (Argyll, Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Camper Van Blues (Salt Modern Poets) (Hardcover)
This book is what I call value for money; it is split into three sections and each section is like a mini-collection in and of itself. Section one is a sequence of twenty-seven poems which gives rise to the title of the book. Section two is Holland's modern translation of an Anglo-Saxon poem called 'The Lament of the Wanderer' and Section three consists of a further thirty-three poems.The last verse of the second poem of the collection, `Troika', really demonstrates what attracts me to Jane Holland's work: "Outside is like the last dark, familiar as the first hurt. I'm used to its velvet lagoons and swim of wet tarmac, its absence of love, my road ahead the white trick of a travelling moon." I love the many layers of sound repetition - like/dark/hurt/tarmac/trick and first/used, lagoon/swim/moon. The slow pleasure in sounding out 'velvet lagoon' and 'swim of wet tarmac' where the hurt and loss is made all the more poignant because of the use of sensual language. The unusual word usage in the imagery of "the white trick / of the travelling moon". All these factors work together to create an emotional impact in which the poem becomes as much the reader's experience as the narrator's. There are so many lovely bits to pick out from these poems. Some of my favorites are: "Cornish rain understands loss" ('Tintagel in November'), "...lost in the thimblerig / that is England" ('Wend'). From 'Truck Stop: "...for those wraithlike countries of the night where you can dream yourself awake and the radio speaks to no one because it's broken". And from 'Metamorphosis': "I hawk stile and scree to the river-bank... ...Fresh channels have cut cords here through pitched grass, sweat-strings of water, sun- jewelled." These are hugely visual poems and many, particularly in the first section, are packed with nitty gritty details of daily life which makes them accessable as real experiences as well as thoroughly enjoyable as tightly crafted poems.
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