Laynie Browne's 'The Scented Fox' arrived on Monday and I've got as far as page 47 'Waxberry, the Forbidden'. It's a lovely volume - one of those you wish you'd thought of, written, even come close to doing. I notice it was selected by Alice Notley for the National Poetry Series - and if it's good enough for her, then it's good enough for me.
Why do I like it?
Lines such as "To a little croft" or "gradually tiny centuries". (There are lots more).
A structure to the volume which embeds and intersperses two series of poems within the 'main' texts, allowing all sorts of crossings and echoes and half-caught resonances.
A vocabulary which is moving fast across the centuries and screeching across disciplines.
Sentences which warp fairy tale with science with proverbial sayings.
Evident procedures such as dictionary ransacking, text sampling and oulipo strategies which - 98 per cent of the time - work.
Evident precursors (real or projected) - Lisa Robertson, Christine Stewart, Gertrude Stein, Lisa Jarnot, Bernadette Mayer, Martin Corless-Smith, Donald Barthelme.
Fox ... faux ... guying Fawkes and folks ... foxed pages (as against 'crofting' which is to bleach linen sheets on the grass)... plenty of fun to be found here!
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