I Think We’re Alone Now, Abigail Parry (Bloodaxe, price: £12)

Shortlisted for this year’s T.S. Eliot Prize, this is a book which showcases Parry’s masterly grasp of some of the more challenging poetry principles: space, for one thing. Story, for another. There isn’t a poem in this collection that I didn’t think wasn’t aided admirably by its spatial setting-out. And the number and nuance of voices, too, are plenty and true, rising far above predictable, over and beyond passable, into profound and poised – other enough to be unusual and interesting yet familiar enough for the reader to fully believe in their truth.

A general inventiveness adds greatly to proceedings, throwing up further unpredictability throughout the collection via unique images and original, astoundingly apt metaphors: “all the saints / polite as china mice up on the shelf”; “The days that come and go / like dull beads on a joyless abacus”. The poet’s PhD in wordplay is apparent, too, with juicy use of language, plus techniques such as assonance and alliteration, giving the poems a livelines and zest that’s very appealing. Intimacy is the main theme in the book, and this is explored from myriad angles, one of my favourite poems being Whatever happened to Rosemarie?, in which the last word of every line is the word ‘Rosemarie’, in a grim, unbalanced kind of monorhyme that speaks strongly of obsession.

The beetle with an inkblot on its back that is featured on the cover points to themes of humans as hive, humans as reflections of each other; and, in the concluding poem, there’s a line:

how we see ourselves                     see each other

which seems key. Along the way, there’s much to ponder, amuse, excite, and admire, however, and Parry is a poet who’s “more scared / than I let on, but also full of love / sometimes joy” and these make for a heady mix as one reads this beetle-shiny, brilliantine, brain-bug of a book.

Last Poem For Sarah And Other Poems, John Powell Ward (Seren, price: £6)

From intimacy, then, to loss. Last Poem for Sarah concludes with a long elegy to the poet’s late wife – referenced in the title of this pamphlet – and a consideration, in this, of “the art of being alone”. Before this piece, there are paeans to lost places and people, the poet’s childhood and youth, other remembrances and recollections. “It’s history now” begins one poem, and this is the point – the past is a perpetual bereavement; and yet, in our deepest selves, we carry these things with us into the future, as the concluding lines of the book’s final poem suggest: “I keep the dearest thing we know. / All that’s left and all tomorrow”.

The poems in this slender, elegant pamphlet are often lyrical and less colloquial than is the fashion with many younger poets; there’s a hint of Dannie Abse, say, or even R.S. Thomas, who this poet has met and who is referenced in one of the pieces here. Painter and architect Ernest Morgan – his house, specifically – also provides a focal point in one piece, and there are references, too, to Dylan Thomas, Lloyd George and other Welsh figures, some of these in a dreamscape that act as a vision of Wales that’s nostalgic and tinged with hiraeth. “It all swims through my mind like fish” writes the poet, and we the readers “taste the tide, hear the gulls” as a result, in poems that are finely wrought, keenly observational, and highly affecting.

The Many Hundreds Of The Scent, Shane McCrae (Corsair, price: £12.99)

On first glance, the poems in this collection look relatively tame, same, and ‘normal’ – blocks of text or neat stanzas, nothing too out-there or outlandish in terms of form. But then, upon reading, you notice gaps in lines, between words, and even within words; cutting them strangely, curtailing lines, causing inbreaths and outbreaths, breaks in our attention; and the effect is entirely disconcerting.

Thus, the normal-seeming is made strange, mysterious, even, the spaces in poems acting as gaps in which we can sense (smell) the unknown, as if we are searching, through these pieces, towards something just beyond reach: “they disappear in darkness, then / They reappear in light, then disappear again / In darkness”. This disconcerting sense combines with poems that are, in their subject matter, wide-ranging and ambitious; self-reflective and meditative, but also extending out to rewrite famous epic tales, as well as bring in energies from science fiction, dystopian and utopian concepts, the wide, wide world, inheritances, and history.

The ‘scent’, then, is ‘many hundreds’, and McCrae is a poetry bloodhound, in a sense: following them, fully unfearing, uniting disparate threads and themes in poems that are heady, humane, high-speed; sometimes, with the poet, like one of the ‘I’s in a poem here, “riding centuries of whips” and managing to muscle all that horror and history into poems that are – like muscles – well-shaped and full of respondent power. It’s a strong, strong read as a result; but when “the world is wild and sad”, what else is there to do? This book is therefore highly recommended.

Owed, Joshua Bennett (Bloomsbury, price: £8.99)

‘Black’ is a key word in these poems, with the word appearing multiple times throughout. And, why not, when the negative enforcing of black bodies into associative shapes and restrictive totems, objectifying them, is one of the subjects here, in a book which is personal and observational but also spans histories. ‘Owed’, you come to realise, is a play upon the word ‘ode’, and there are numerous ‘owed’s throughout this book – to ankle weights; to the 99-cent store; to “your father’s gold chain” – as well as elegies and a series, near the middle of the book, of ‘reparations’.

But odes (oweds) are central – an ode being the worship or praise of a thing – and the thing in this case could be the ‘black body’, which is reclaimed, re-wrought, and re-defined, in this age of “casual erasure” in which “so much has been said / about black men”. Bennett takes back what is ‘owed’, reworking ‘odes’ and white patriarchal poetry forms in the process.

The poems themselves may be visual, lyrical, and vivid; sharp, shocking, and contemplative; or some mix of these. There are dreamscapes and cityscapes, relationships and recollections. Bennett’s eye, mind, and heart may go anywhere, encompass anything – there’s a powerful intellect at work here – but it’s the interplay of elegy (sadness) and ode (joy) that I find most affecting, alongside the shocking reparation poems and other pieces that are infused with mild and even tender humour. A grandiose yet humble collection, it will bowl you over, and then some.

Wild Cherry: Selected Poems, Nigel Jenkins (Parthian, price: £10)

I think I was very lucky as a young person, poetry-wise. Dannie Abse did a reading at my high school; I heard Peter Finch being read on Radio 1 as a teenager, and visited his bookshop Oriel in Cardiff many times; the Manics introduced me to R.S. Thomas, who I adored. But here’s a poet I’ve neglected, thinking I would ‘get to’ him in time and didn’t ever properly read, being so absorbed in running the Day of a dead poet – Dylan Thomas – and in reading so many others for review or related to running events.

And now this particular bard has sadly joined our dear Dylan in the sky, and what do I find in this volume of selected poems? A poet who I feel more affinity with than most; who writes about Wales but also about the cosmos (as I do); who’s as clear, pure, lucid, light, and accessible as I wish to be; who’s as true, bright, honest, right-seeing, and unafraid as I, also, aim for in my own work. Enough about me, then – but it’s a shocking sadness to read this book and realise there was a poet within reach who I never knew and who I hold such an affinity with!

Perhaps it’s because of the hills and the sky, the sea on our three sides and our cultural inheritance, but I find the landscape of Jenkins’ work here hugely appealing, highly inspiring, a mirror for me and the poet I am and would like to grow to be. In this landscape, too, there’s a beautiful, refreshing stream of humour that speaks of the poet’s acceptance of this aspect as an inherent part of the ‘connecting’ work of poetry (which I also believe to be true). Honest, lively, so finely written, and entirely enjoyable and uplifting for any reader, Jenkins’ special message for poets is what I will leave you with here: please go and buy this book.

So glide aboard the Taffy-train, 
Become a Wales-based writer:
Wales and Welsh writing belong to us, 
The future couldn’t look brighter.

Surviving Death, Kyla Houbolt (The Broken Spine, price: £5.99)

In this final collection, then, we find a contemplation of finality itself; that is, death – but also what is beyond death, and how we can assimilate the fact of our inevitable end whilst still being alive. “What if I choose one sin per day: / mayonnaise or murder, or a tiny lie?” asks the poet, as if contemplating the ‘how’ of existence; how best to savour it, and in what style.

Many of the poems address ideas, thoughts, and concepts, ruminating upon the multiple aspects which such a prominent topic can raise; and it’s one of the strengths of Kyla Houbolt that they can contemplate so widely, and from so many angles, offering unexpected images and experiences in their writing. In one poem, for example, voices of the dead are heard, asking for remembrance, but one requests: “can you take / this arm bone and make a flute please?”. Humour, and slightly surreal images here and there, are showcased throughout, and add a wry touch to the poet’s expansive enquiries.

Many of the poems are short, poised, playful, reminding me a little of Bukowski but without the sexism and beeriness; reminding me, also, of Emily Dickinson, and her more koan-esque style; and there’s a little bit of the more contemporary here, too, say Rupi Kaur, with that same accessibility and clear, cool writing. However, there’s far more naughtiness and nuance than Kaur, I feel; add a touch of Dylan Thomas’s fire, perhaps – but in all this is an original poet, and it’s only an old hack like me who projects these literary echoes. Unique, assured, startling, this is a brilliant new voice in the world, and I highly recommend this collection to everyone who just loves very good poetry!