tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270024178512866290.post1116837779188107810..comments2023-10-27T07:29:26.285+00:00Comments on Polyolbion: Two PoemsMatt Merritthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12371656447328595720noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270024178512866290.post-72989675413846716562009-09-10T08:16:02.786+00:002009-09-10T08:16:02.786+00:00Hi Simon,
I think that's exactly right - he...Hi Simon,<br />I think that's exactly right - he's raptor-like himself in his very narrow, single-minded focus on his quarry, isn't he? The result is, as you say, incantatory. <br />When I first read it, I found it so intense that I had to read no more than two or three pages at a time - it's almost physically exhausting.<br />Thanks very much for the kind comments, and for publishing the poem.Matt Merritthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371656447328595720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270024178512866290.post-48828727645469069792009-09-09T19:53:06.951+00:002009-09-09T19:53:06.951+00:00Hi Matt,
I loved your Baker variations (though th...Hi Matt,<br /><br />I loved your Baker variations (though that's obviously a given, seeing as I just published them, but I thought it was worth restating). It's strange that The Hill of Summer doesn't quite match up. To my mind, it's a matter of intensity. The Peregrine is about just that, the peregrine (clue's in the title), almost monomanaical in its determination to doggedly keep on its subject throughout. It never wavers. The Hill of Summer is more closely akin to a series of geographically related essays, and doesn't have the cumulative force of The Peregrine as a result. With The Hill..., the intensity seems to have been concentrated into occasional singular moments (there's a description of an ant's nest early on that's quite startling, and shows what Baker can do when he's firing on all cylinders), but with The Peregrine, it felt as though every single word was charged with electricity. The book's almost pagan in that sense, a muscly cantata of sympathetic magic bringing the landscape and its inhabitants to life on the page.<br /><br />Simon Turner, Gists and PithsThe Editorshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06264669059410810775noreply@blogger.com