X by Vona Groarke is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
X (noun) — 24th letter of the English alphabet;
signifies an unknown person or thing;
multiplication sign;
a signature substitute;
used to represent a choice or a vote;
used to indicate a mistake;
a mark for treasure on a map;
a sex chromosome;
a kiss . . .
From X-Factor to X-rated, the third least common letter in the English alphabet appears commonly in life. In this sixth collection from this award-winning poet, X occurs when the known and the intuited cross each other’s paths.These poems take pleasure in surface and depth. From the luminous colour of the garden sequence to its response to the transcendent spaces of Danish artist, Vilhelm Hammershøi, X marks feeling and experience in language as daring as it is beautiful. This is a book of candour and poise: a groundbreaking publication from a writer hailed in Poetry Ireland Review as ‘among the best Irish poets writing today’.
'Groarke's syntax offers a sophisticated blend of craft and craftiness, full of subtle manoeuvres that wrong-foot the reader, even as it stays within earshot of the speech patterns of the Irish Midlands, where the poet was born. Her conclusions are emphatic but they are never theatrical, as when the title poem having considered various connotations of 'x', from 'a shape / signifying nothing' to 'the length of breadth of days / that bleed into other days', finally alights on the closing image: 'the blades of a bedroom ceiling fan / come to / a perfectly obvious stop'. By forgoing the showy, self-dramatising gestures of much contemporary poetry, Groarke clears a space for her poem to enter. What follows is a single sentence that unspools over nine three-line stanzas and considers the 'price to be paid / for the want of love'. X is an outstanding collection by a poet at the height of her powers.' — Paul Batchelor, The New Statesman
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Book Information
Publication Date: 27 February 2014
Details: 96pp
ISBN ebook: 978 1 85235 636 1
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