Strange Beach, Oluwaseun Olayiwola (Fitzcarraldo Editions, £5.99-£12.99)

The fact that London-based Nigerian-American Oluwaseun Olayiwola is also a choreographer makes sense when surveying these poems, which have a light yet compact quality, with a strong sense of the movement of a text, its internal flows and eddies. Images of bodies within these works reinforce this sense, flashing throughout the poems here, dancing and darting amongst other images.

In a more anatomical sense, the poet moves from body and movement to what lies beneath, paring back forms in many of these works to reveal fists, scalps, skin, bowels and bones; and, beyond these, breath, brain, speech, and soul. Olayiwola is very much a philosophical poet, I feel, and the meaning – the truth – behind the everyday and visually apparent is one of his primary concerns.

Although it isn’t advertised here, I would also say that Olayiwola is a fine poet of place. I had literally just been walking along the Thames in London when, on the train home, I read the book’s final poem, Night on the Thames Path, and it is a brilliant evocation of walking, being, seeing; of London life, the wetlands along the estuary, the histories of these and, subsequently, of remembering the dead. An image of a bone set deep in a riverbed stayed with me, and there is much else here that will resonate, perturb, and linger like that relic in your own mind, too.

Naming The Trees, Ness Owen (Arachne Press, price £5-£9.99)

In language that is clear and lucid, Ness Owen explores our relationship with trees. In part, this poetry collection is informed by mythology and folklore, but it also stems from a campaign that aimed to save the ancient forests of Penrhos. Many of the poems are also in Welsh, which is, for this Welsh reviewer, refreshing – and also a great move on the part of Arachne Press. (This weekend past, I went to the Tower Of London, and this language of Britain was not included on its walking guide, app, majority of descriptions, etc. which perhaps shows how little Welsh is counted in British culture.) So, here’s a small press making up for such awful oversights! And, since the book includes concepts of ‘naming’, this wider embrace of language seems apt, extending out, as it does, in these poems, to also embrace “tree-tongue” and the ability of the forest to pass on its own kind of wisdom.

Many of the poems seem as if they are on the move, taking us for a walk or a hike through woodlands (“We pressed our wellies / deep into the singing mud…”). The final image of the book is of walking, and that makes this book a brilliant addition to the ‘ecopoetry’ movement and to books about nature, wonder, walking, and the natural world. The poems themselves are light, lovely, leaning towards the lyrical, even hymn-like, with an enmeshed sense of rhythm and metre, which fits this sense of being on the move. Underneath, however, lies the energy of anger, at how we treat the natural world, but it is fittingly channelled into these pieces and gives them energy and heft. Overall, it is effective, enlivening, and affecting.

New And Collected Hell, Shane McCrae (Corsair Poetry, £12.99)

It’s not often you read a book-length poem, these days – ‘instapoetry’ being the thing, and of necessity short – but here we have one; although the book is a collection of two parts, and in the second part we have titled sections which constitute ‘poems’ in and of themselves – still, the works form part of a larger, book-length tale, which dares, like Dante, to take us into the deeper reaches of existence.

At first, the I of the poem is hiking, then in a boat, and then suddenly he is accosted / accompanied by a monstrous bird that is grey, seagull-size but also looks like a robot – an analogy for capitalism, or for technology, perhaps? Or, for a life that’s lived without really feeling alive, possibly? Either way, the I and the bird are brought together here, and we, the reader, follow, through scenes that seem like dreams, or dreams that contain scenes, up to the book’s ghastly, ghostly conclusion.

Along the way, there is body horror (“I landed on my feet my femurs / snapped free at the hip”) and gothic horror, with shades of Poe and Milton also embedded into the work. We learn more about the bird, and how it has been tasked to act as a kind of tour guide. We also find out more about hell, and whether it truly is a place or, as the bird states, us human beings (“you are Hell / Its living walls   its rivers / You are each other’s flames”) is up for debate; but, certainly, this is a very interesting and philosophically-led book. Additional wry nods towards modern culture, with its shops and TV shows, its elevators and diapers, its offices and coffee grinders make for absorbing stuff all round: one to read, ideally, on a rainy, stormy night, or a grey city morning, perhaps.

Foxglovewise, Ange Mlinko (Faber Poetry, £10.99)

“How good it smells, this / orange blossom.” Foxglovewise is a book that dwells in life’s immediate and most sensory beauties, embracing principles of mindfulness, of being-in-the-moment and, from a poetic perspective, of close attention and observation, moving on into delight.

Scenes familiar to this American poet are thus painted in a new light – an expressway “spirals up” towards “sunlight bearing the stamp / of angelic principalities”, for example – and flowers, plants, and fruits in particular dazzle and surprise us through choice, original images and similes: bougainvillea as “a hummingbird”, pomegranates as “a red light district”, and so many more. “Backwoods and bayous” are delved into, and “unwanted plants” are accepted and explored, even acting as an analogy for the human soul itself. Everything and anything is a source of wonder, potentially, and that makes this book a real treat to read.

But, what I loved most about this collection was Mlinko’s love of language, which is choice and juicy, thrilling the tongue and offering up a feast of images that loll and languish, filling the mind most fulsomely. The book’s hot pink cover intimates at the lushness within, and asks to be delved into. As per an image in one poem, this book “stands like a majuscule, clad / above the glassy wilderness / in an ecstasy of coastal mist”. I would say that this gorgeous, glorious collection stands out from my poetry piles similarly; even more so, being such an impressive debut. A joy!