Material Properties
16 February 2023Synopsis
Material Properties, Jacob Polley's fiith collection of poems with Picador, asks what it might mean to interpret and translate wildness into human language and human understanding. The book is a multi-faceted and vital exploration of the non-human, the elemental and the borders between existences. Through poems of parenthood at a time of environmental emergency, and poetic versions of Old English riddles in which animals, objects and natural phenomena speak, the book poses essential questions about our relationship with the living world and with each other.
Praise for previous work, Jackself, from T.S. Eliot Prize judges: ‘a firework of a book, inventive, exciting and outstanding in its imaginative range and depth of feeling’.
Details
16 February 2023
9781035000081Reviews
The poems have an unforced charm, delighting in the wonder that surrounds usGuardian
Polley’s grasp . . . is masterful, and the book is a delight. He succeeds in echoing the texture of his poetic forebears, but with a wry panache which is all his own.Stephanie Sy-Quia, The Poetry Review
What sustains these playful, wise, gentle lyrics is Polley’s technical skill. Longer poems are activated and maintained by their musicality and by a particular way with syntax that seeks to give texture and topography to the poems. One feels them as one is delighted by themStephen Sexton, The Irish Times
How often do you come across a book you read again and again and always with increasing pleasure? It’s the quality of the writing that draws me back, both rooted and adventuring, elegant yet at ease in different registers and vocabularies … Jacob Polley’s language reaches to the heart of his subjectsJane Routh, The Friday Poem
