First things first: I know nothing about contemporary poetry, especially contemporary poetry geared towards adults. Sure I can recite Disobedience by A.A. Milne and most of Alligator Pie, but grown-up poems — I think the last grown-up book I read with poetry in it was A Poet and bin-Laden, which seemed to have been written under the illusion that there simply wasn’t enough poetry in novels about Central Asian politics (it was kind of like reading Tolkien except the inclusion of poetry was even more baffling).
So I know nothing about poetry.
And I read a book of poetry.
And said I’d review it.
Even though I don’t know what I’m doing.
Can I end the review here?
I’m going to say I liked it. I’m going to say the poems were interesting. Divided into three (really four, but one section has one poem only) sections, one about Iraqi Kurdistan, one about the Northwest Territories, one about Azerbaijan, within the sections, the poems inter-relate, if only due to geography. I’m going to say I got a sense of each of the locales, even though there was no plot to weave together. This is big for me — I love plot. I love stories. The stories here were more ephemeral. Maybe they didn’t exist. Maybe it was negative space I put stories into. Or maybe the stories were deep and I only skimmed the surface, not realizing their depths.
As I said, I don’t know much about poetry.
Some of the poem rhymed though. I do have a great appreciation for rhyming poems.
Also, Patrick Woodcock seems to know a lot of kids to dedicate poems to. Not that the poems he dedicated to these kids would be of much interest, necessarily to kids. A kid would probably rather Alligator Pie. Maybe they’ll appreciate them when they’re older.
I think I’ll end the review now here.
You can’t bury them all by Patrick Woodcock went on sale April 12, 2016.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.