A Darker Way, Grahame Davies (Seren, price: £10.99)

A Darker Way by Grahame Davies really resonated with me, with its visions of a younger, more puritanical poet, and its cast of familiar, fantastically drawn characters, from ‘Happy Larry’ – “one of those characters, born middle aged, / that never stray five miles from where they’re born” – to an unnamed Colleague – “She lied to people, was the simple fact, / and yet they seemed to love her all the same”. People are shaped in all sorts of ways, and this author’s eye draws their idiosyncrasies brilliantly; people are broken, too, and poems about loss – in particular, some sequences, one addressing and evoking the mining tragedy at Aberfan – explore this with sensitivity and soul.

Although intelligent, what strikes me most is A Darker Way’s quiet, deliberate, unassuming style – speaking plainly, in the way that good bread is plain, with some lyricism and melody here and there, in the way that flowers might adorn a small and simple country church. Several poems from other (I assume unpublished) poetry sequences or books-in-progress, placed at the end of this collection, point to a body of work that is spiritual, though seemingly incomplete – perhaps deemed not to be to the ‘taste’ of the modern reader. Conversely, this sort of soul food feels like just what we need at this time.

In any case, this is a beautiful book of poems that illustrate how “beauty [is] made more perfect by the scar”. Profound, and profoundly resilient, Grahame Davies’ A Darker Way is a collection of hurts transmuted to hope and healing.

The Soul We Share, Ricky Ray (Fly On The Wall, price: £11.99)

A big book here by poetry standards, at approximately 160 pages; still a paperback (hardback also being a rarity in Poetry World), but poets rarely get such thick tomes. Though I’d not previously read anything by Ricky Ray, this wealth of pages in The Soul We Share is justified. There are no ‘filler’ poems here: every one’s got something interesting and important to offer, and possesses lines and ideas to savour.

As The Soul We Share’s title suggests, the human here extends to the non-human, intimating not just a shared soul but a shared world. The cover features an image of a beautiful brown dog, and in the poems, the writer is accompanied by this four-legged creature, who is named Addie. The love and friendship between these two are beautifully conveyed – “watching her, someone pulled / the string on the lightbulb in my chest” – whilst a series of short, haiku-like ‘aches’ at points throughout the book propels the reader into a range of other, often more tremulous or transient emotions, showcasing the poet’s profound ability to pen feeling with just a few, finely honed words.

A brilliant book that you’ll want to play ‘fetch’ with, going back to again and again, for that ‘shared soul’ is not just the writer and the dog, but includes the reader as well. Lively and lovely, this is a book to carry about, for a time, and dip into, and adore.

Conflicted Copy, Sam Riviere (Faber, price: £12.99)

Play with AI takes strange turns into desolate, disparate and dry tones of voice in Sam Riviere’s Conflicted Copy‘s poems, which are, in their construction, ‘found’ – on account of having been created through this new manmade medium. Using an artificial intelligence program, these pieces – like AI artwork – do fascinate, sounding something like human but, in some spots, jarring or unsettling with their ‘wrong’ humour, almost empathy, and tones which seem out of kilt – overly jovial, perhaps, or fakely introspective. So Conflicted Copy feels strange, unsettling, and at a distance, somehow.

And yet a fair number of Riviere’s poems come across as ‘real’ – not written by AI at all. This raises questions about the authentic nature of verse; of poetry being, as I often like to think of it, our soul. AI has no soul, but since it draws from the poetry and words of human beings, perhaps it has the echo of one. An interesting poetry book with an interesting premise, Conflicted Copy offers some fascinating facets into the face of AI, showing where it is a robot, where it is a mirror, and also querying the nature of creativity and of poetry itself as a result.

This Common Uncommon, Rae Howells (Parthian, price: £10)

The “wide and green body” of the common is made manifest, observed and explored in This Common Uncommon, the newest book by Rae Howells. Nameless, and seen by many as a “scrubby wasteland”, the poet focuses on a common close to her – West Cross – which is, in fact, richly biodiverse, containing 43 ‘indicator species’ (only 12 are required for it to be designated a priority habitat) and at least 520 species in total. It’s hugely biodiverse, then, but, as is ever the way with our important habitats, now finds itself to be under threat, particularly from attempts towards development.

Howells writes with sensitivity, empathy, liveliness and keen observation on and about this, in several sections which are inhabited by place and plants, humans and animals. With my own Bog Witch book just out, I was particularly interested in where wetlands entered into the book, and how “a swamp” is seen as “a nightmare” by the generic speaker in the poem Common Assumptions, for example. Transmuting widely held views of wetlands as “wastelands” is important to me, and in the poem Bog Body Howells writes on this, with creativity and captivating imagination, giving the body of the Earth life and illuminating our relation to her in that process.

More widely, her common is both common and uncommon (hence the collection’s title), because what lives and breathes here is everyday yet marvellous, within reach yet wonderfully profound, and the poet succeeds in capturing this sense with the ever-ready green ink of her pen. Finely wrought, intelligent, and full of heart, This Common Uncommon is an important book that speaks for nature, land, and species which, too often, we see as silent: a vital tome at a time of urgency.

Not Your Orlando, JP Seabright, George Parker & Jaime Lock (Punk Dust Poetry, price: £7)

Not Your Orlando is so great! Celebrating queerdom, queerness, and being queer, it’s the latest publication from Punk Dust Poetry, run by the inimitable poet Jamie Woods. Composed by three poets, it wasn’t clear to me whether the poems were co-authored (each writer collaborating to create one poem), each by individual poets, or some mix of these. I suppose not knowing presents within the book a sense of there being a ‘united front’, and an overall voice which is all/none – fitting, since the book explores the experience of being gay in a culture which still harbours bigotry, as the title of the final poem – You Fucking Dyke! – makes plain.

This is a book full of feist and fury, wit and wonderment, tales of terror and tales of triumph. Structured into three sections – agitate, transmutate, celebrate – it takes us on a journey which encompasses its own ‘Choose Life’ rhetoric (this poem alone is worth the price of the book) on through club cloakrooms, “transmasculine kisses”, and encouragement to Cwtch Butch – the trials and the terribleness, the joy and the jubilation, are all here. It is utterly human and humane, heartbreaking and heart lifting. The language veers and soars, and is clever and captivating throughout, without even one iota of pretension or ‘poor me’ in any of it. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year. Read Not Your Orlando now, yourself, and let it fill you with wonder; two words from me, really – “yay gay”!