THE BROKEN WORD
Adam Foulds
Cape, £9
Adam Foulds, it seems, is disgustingly talented. After the huge success of his debut novel, The Truth About These Strange Times, comes his first foray into poetry with this startling sequence. Tom is abou
t to go to university, but returning home first he becomes reluctantly embroiled in the events of the Mau Mau uprising. Vigorous and pulsing, Foulds' linguistic pearls are dispensed liberally and casually. Poetry cannot beautify a situation such as this, yet Foulds has created something beautiful, the 'gritty dragging wetness' of the thing manifestly splayed before us.
Also try: Derek Walcott, Omeros
MANDEVILLE
Matthew Francis
Faber, £9.99
Based on The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville from the 14th century, Francis has plumped for a poetic restoration of the man described by Sir Thomas Browne as "the greatest liar of all time". This queer, disputed history provides fitting grist for Francis's mill. Mandeville allows him to exercise his imaginative muscle, guiding us stealthily through exotic lands. His material is phantasmagorical, but the fixity of the poetic structure and titles lend the whole an air of passion spent, of wry and weary detachment. The jig may be up, but Francis gives John Mandeville an intriguing tribute.
Also try: Paul Muldoon, Madoc
SELECTED POEMS
Bernard O'Donoghue
Faber, £12.99
This welcome edition is moving collage of O'Donoghue at his lyrical best. A study of what it is to be looking back at the place of your childhood from the vantage of an adulthood spent elsewhere, this collection is imbued with that bleak celebration of what it is to be Irish.
Emotionally generous, O'Donoghue squeezes out those little thrills of recognition with poems that are like Polaroid snaps of times past; lovingly fondled and gently faded with age and all the more poignant for it.
Also try: Eavan Boland, New Selected Poems
