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      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
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      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
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      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
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      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
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      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions

Selected Poems by John Glenday
​(
Picador, 2020)


reviewed by Eleanor Hooker

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​John Glenday is a Scottish poet. In his recently published Selected Poems, he draws on thirty years of his best work, including poems from The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets, 1989); Undark (Peterloo Poets, 1995); Grain (Picador, 2009) and The Golden Mean (Picador, 2015), poems from his uncollected works and from mira, a limited edition pamphlet published by artist and poet Maria Isakiva Bennett.  This much anticipated book features poems that are decidedly of themselves – mature, elegiac, wise but without being arch, replete with settled and unsettling truths.
 
The poems in the first section of the book are from Glenday’s earliest collection The Apple Ghost. The opening poem ‘The Rise of Icarus’ plays on the myth in the telling of a father and son’s early relationship.
 
My father brought a German flying
helmet home form the war. The summer I started
school I wore it constantly
 
                                                                        (‘The Rise of Icarus’)                                                             
 
This pilot’s helmet acts as a buffer against the son hearing or heeding his father’s guidance. The speaker tells of his dream where he ‘pedalled a tiny plane/across our lawn; the tin propeller hoisted/me through the angled joists of air’, whilst beneath him, his father issued warnings he could not hear. ‘So I watched him waving upwards soundlessly//as the swelling sun beat down upon my wings.’ Too often it is in retrospect that we consider our parents’ wisdom, counselling us not to fly too close to the sun, yet Icarus’ father also advised his son against flying too low, lest the sea choke his wings. Glenday, who also worked as a psychiatric nurse, would be aware that the Icarus story is used in a therapeutic context to illustrate the euphoric highs and depressive lows in some psychiatric disorders.
 
In his poems, Glenday seeks to describe that insistent, indefinable element that begets all living things. In so doing, he concerns himself with absences - of meaning, of light, of place, of loved ones long gone. ‘Concerning the Atoms of the Soul’, (from Undark) tackles the puzzle, the enormity of existence. In five short verses, Glenday couples the notion that we consist of atoms ‘falling towards the centre//of whatever everything is’, with the transcendent belief that atoms, having hooks, ‘is why in early love, we sometimes/feel the tug of the heart snapping against another’s heart’, in order to prepare for his conclusion that the atoms of the soul are ‘perfect spheres’ with
 
no means of holding on to the world
or perhaps no need for holding on,
and so they fall through our lives catching
 
against nothing, like perfect rain
 
                                         (‘Concerning the Atoms of the Soul’)
 
Another striking example of how Glenday describes the ineffable, by describing what defines it, is to be found in his poem ‘A Difficult Colour’ (from The Apple Ghost). In eleven lines, Glenday creates a scene that produces motion, stillness, sights and smells, and understanding. After ‘you have drawn/the boat up on the shingle for the night’, the difficult colour is imagined not by looking at the scene ‘on the fall hill’ but by watching the invented scene, distorted a second time, trembling in the reflections in the water. Perhaps appreciating that it is in fact ambiance the narrator is trying to describe, you find yourself agreeing, yes, ‘it’s that sort of colour’.
 
‘Yesterday’s Noise’ is another haunting description of absence. This poem is in the final section of the book, as part of the Uncollected Poems, and first appeared as a filmpoem by Alaistair Cook. It refers obliquely to the controversial history of the Greenock Sugar Sheds at Inverclyde.
 
Now, when you eyes settle to the dark in here, you’ll see better:
look, she’s more of an interference with the light than ghost
 
                                         (‘Yesterday’s Noise’)
 
The depth and solemnity of much of this work is balanced by a number of humourous poems; droll, but still with a bit of a bite. ‘Tin’ (from Grain) is one such example. This poem is reminiscent of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Valentine’
 
When you asked me for a love poem,
(another love poem) my thoughts
were immediately drawn to the early days
 
of the food canning industry –
                                                                       
                                                                        (‘Tin’)
 
The epigraph to this poem reads ‘(the can opener was invented forty-eight/years after the tin can)’.
 
Though always sparing and restrained, Glenday’s language is like sonar; returning an echo after plumbing the depths.  ‘Amber’ (from The Golden Meani) is an exquisitely delicate poem, even if the subject matter is on the hardening of resolve and un-forgiveness. Using amber as a metaphor for the wound hurt brings, is masterful.
 
Some wounds weep precious through the generations.
They glaze and harden, heal themselves into history.

What was mere sap matures like blood in air to darken
and burnish. To change into something useful, almost.
 
                                                                        (‘Amber’)
 
Glenday’s poems have a quiet assuredness, his use of pronouns creates a conversational tone, that never raises its voice to rage or rant at the reader. Each poem is a scrutiny, that adds, I feel, to one’s understanding, or lack thereof, of the world, and enriches the world they seek to explain.
 
The final poem in the book, ‘For My Wife, Reading in Bed’, is a love poem to his wife Erika, and is as enigmatic as any other poem in the Selected.
 
 
What else do we have but words and their absences
 
to bind and unfasten the knotwork of the heart;
to remind us how mutual and alone we are, how tiny
 
and insignificant?
 
                                         (‘For My Wife, Reading in Bed’)
 
John Glenday’s Selected Poems represents a body of work by one of the finest lyric poets writing today. His poems will, as they weigh upon the edges of language and silence in poetry, stand as exemplars of the form; his poems are beautiful, curious, mysterious things.

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The reviewer:
​
Eleanor Hooker holds an MPhil (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin. She has published two collections with Dedalus Press, The Shadow Owner’s Companion (2012) shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award for Best First Irish Collection, and A Tug of Blue (2016). Her third collection plus two chapbooks are due for publication in 2021. Her poems have appeared in literary journals worldwide. Eleanor’s poem ‘Through the Ears of a Fish’ (Poetry magazine), is shortlisted for Listowel Writers’ Week, Irish Poem of the Year 2020. Eleanor is a helm and Press Officer for Lough Derg RNLI Lifeboat. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London.


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​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2025    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
    • 2023 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXV August 2023
      • ISSUE XXXVI December 2023 Indian Poetry
    • 2024 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVII October 2024 Bengali Poetry
    • 2025 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVIII January 2025 Balkan Poetry
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions