Andrew Martin\u2019s poetry is highly charged emotionally, but in this, his third collection, it never feels heavy, or encumbered with sentimentality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The desire paths of the title are the rivers, tributaries, trails and flight-paths of the natural world, but also, the footpaths, remembered streets, mind-loops, smoketrails, lifelines, lines on skin, fingerprints, veins of a human life. All are infused with desire and capable, like maps, of being read. Sometimes these lines become blocked – paths overgrown, veins silted-up, even air can be \u201cthick as water \/ streamed between us\u201d (walking with you) – but the poetry flows continuously, spilling over into fertile deltas of emotional depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Martin sees desire everywhere he cares to look, and he looks everywhere, at everything, with the focus and precision of a Leica. Desire is woven into his world and its effects \u2013 \u201cthere is always a river \/ whittling away somewhere\u201d (sometimes you forget). Desire is in the skylark which \u201cchimes the sky\u201d (tigered); in the \u201ctrain lines\u201d which \u201csing \/ the miles between us\u201d (sometimes the world is so gentle); in \u201ca field \/ roaring \/ with dandelions\u201d (the path); in \u201cthe bleached bone grass \/ beneath us\u201d (amongst the dreaming and the dead).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Desire connects everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In perhaps the most representative poem of the collection, desire threads, it is \u201cyour smoke stitched \/ into my dark air\u201d which captures both the elusivity and mystery within that peculiar atmosphere we know as love; it is found in the lines that swallows and swifts scratch \u201cinto the palms of wind\u201d; it is heard in the threads of silence that weave counterpoint through the poet\u2019s songs of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, desire is unearthed in \u201cthe silk of the circuitry \/\/ scribed into the sky \/ that separates \/ us\u201d (the silk circuitry). Throughout, it is \u201cstitched\u201d, \u201cthreaded\u201d, \u201cetched\u201d into both natural phenomena and experience. Sometimes it wounds, as in the lines of experience \u201cscored into \u2026 skin\u201d (if I could give you); sometimes it heals or acts as a balm as when, with \u201cthe waves \/ we walk into \/\/ each step \/ blunts our blades \/ shatters our rage\u201d (sea glass).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skin, both the thick and thin kind, is a recurrent motif: skin as the canvas on which experience is etched, skin which protects, but which bruises and scars; which heals, but which can also \u201cseal\u201d in pain. Fingertips, likewise appear throughout: feeling, tapping, searching; they are Martin\u2019s sensitive indentifiers, helping the poet to find his way through emotional darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These metaphors are woven in such fine needlepoint you barely notice them, but the cumulative effect is exhilarating. There is great yearning here, trauma and pain, but it is never allowed to become maudlin. Feelings of loss, longing, sorrow, fear and anguish all take flight through a stunning technique which eschews punctuation in favour of space and light: the space and light of the page itself \u2013 the margins, line and stanza breaks – which is drawn into the poetry. This is seen most clearly in the closing Phantom Paths which runs across several pages of sparse verse, often just two or three lines of stark, cold beauty standing isolate in white space, like ghosts, or traces of memory. This is emotion stripped naked and exposed to the elements: \u201cwind licks the wounds \/ it gave itself\u201d, or, \u201clet the river unravel us \/ back to threads\u201d, or, \u201csky shivered \/ deep space distorted\u201d. And finally, the aching, sadness-in-hope and gentle wordplay of, \u201cour silver song \/ sung soft \/ as newborn soles\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is also, it must be said, uninhibited joy in, and celebration of, the natural world, its compensations, and the animals, especially birds, which inhabit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is poetry in a minor key, of great heart and unwavering honesty, delivered in a quiet, confident voice, which doesn\u2019t demand, so much as seduce attention. The rewards for submitting are great indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andrew Martin\u2019s poetry is highly charged emotionally, but in this, his third collection, it never feels heavy, or encumbered with sentimentality. The desire paths of the title are the rivers, tributaries, trails and flight-paths of the natural world, but also, the footpaths, remembered streets, mind-loops, smoketrails, lifelines, lines on skin, fingerprints, veins of a human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-188","review","type-review","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"author":[179]},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shoalsofstarlings.com\/shoalsofstarlingspress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shoalsofstarlings.com\/shoalsofstarlingspress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shoalsofstarlings.com\/shoalsofstarlingspress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shoalsofstarlings.com\/shoalsofstarlingspress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-author\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shoalsofstarlings.com\/shoalsofstarlingspress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}