The Brink [Paperback]

I find it easier to put my finger on what I like about this book than what I'm not so sure.

Yes, I love the textures of the language, the music of these bare-bones poems of lansdcape, home and the outside elements. Polley makes strange wonderfully, and he has a fine ear. There is a confidence at work here - the writer has a clear feel for his territory and he writes out of that feel. The simplicity of this formula is winning and reassuring.

Perhaps it is also part of what leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable. Polley's subject matter - his range of reference - is conservative - he rarely pushes out from this terraine of nature, landscape, home, creatures. Also, the emotional spectrum of the poems is quite narrow and very controlled. The writer is rarely turned upside down by his subject matter - it seems to come from a comfort zone now too famillar in poetry. It is a poetry of calm amazement - held breath and wide eyed wonder. It isn't shallow or superficial, but it rarely courts disturbance or interrogates itself. Perhaps this will change as the poet gets older and he develops more courage to explore, both internally and externally. I hope market forces or the temptation to be popular don't contribute to limiting this talented poet's growth.

My biggest gripe is with the blurb. Do Picador need to keep telling us who the 'best new writers' are? Jacob Polley is the best thing, snce, well, Paul Farley, who is, well, another Picador poet. Please, let us make up our own minds. We don't need to be preached at to be converted. We don't all need league tables.

It is not often you come across a book of poetry you want to put in the pocket of whatever coat you are wearing and carry around with you, but The Brink has to be one of those books. Its contents seem both familiar and strange, inventively modern and unassumingly traditional, powerfully alloyed.
The subject matters of the home, the family, and nature, are re-evaluated and re-dressed in a way you never suspected was possible but can fully appreciate as it occurs. The ordinary is often extraordinarily seen, considered, and presented by the poet - a crow is reincarnated as Cain's murderous gloves, and a father, aware that his life is changing, suddenly feels compelled to use his diaries for kindling in his daily ritual of lighting the fire. Dually, unimaginable concepts, like the drowning of Britain by floods and the exploration of its new underwater geography, are portrayed casually and convincingly. The language of the book seems to possess a peculiar northern austerity and a minimalism, describing the relics of human existence and the basic anatomy of the environment - the extreme edges of things - but it also has vivid blood, it's muscular and original and frequently it 'sings' to you, so that each structure of words is charged with energy and fleshed into life, whereupon it captivates you with its voice. History is borrowed and continues on. The past is unearthed and made relevent and fascinating. In his poem 'Salvage' the poet describes a house built from ship's timber, still haunted by the spirit of that first maritime identity. There is an inescapable sense throughout the collection that Jacob Polley is capable of some kind of radical archeology and animation. And the site for this work is a remarkable territory where both poetry-lovers and those unaccustomed to or even afraid of the medium can meet with satisfaction.
This is a beautiful book, a slender volume, the perfect size to keep on your person after it has been discovered. But once it has been read you will wonder just how it fits so neatly inside that pocket exactly, because the words are colossal and vital and they resonate long after the pages have been closed. Find it, buy it, carry it around.

This collection is truly beautiful, and as is evident from the other reviews, beauty is often in the eye of the beholder (it seems some poetry reviewers have some particular axe to grind). This collection is different from the poetry that I have read before, and they are delightful bursts of art and spirit to be savoured.

I would highly recommend purchasing this volume and finding a live reading by the author to attend! I have had the pleasure of hearing Jacob read in person and I thoroughly enjoyed the event.