An Explanation of Poetry to My Father - Glenn Colquhoun
This short book is a series of poems in which the author (as the title suggests) attempts to explain poetry to his father, a builder and more 'traditionally manly' Kiwi bloke (at least, the poems suggest this), using the medium of poetry to do so.
The poems within are less self-contained poems than you would usually get in a collection, then. Instead, they all seek to explain a concept of poetry in a poetic fashion. We get poems with titles like 'The shape of words', 'The word as a means of communication' or even 'A set of instructions to be used when reading a poem', most of which take their title as a launchpad for a poetic/figurative unpacking of the concept in question. There are biblical allusions, lots of metaphors about building materials, and occasional touches of humour, such as when the poem 'The word as a memory' ends a list of relatively heard-felt connotations of the word "blue" with the punchline "For dogs who have been fed from blue plastic bowls blue is the colour of a full stomach." (page 29)
I will admit that some of the ideas are clever, but to be honest I don't always 'get' poetry. I can see what the author is going for, and certain poems could even be used in class to unpack concepts - I quite like the stanza in 'The word as a tool' that explains commas by stating: "It is no coincidence that commas come in the shape of chisels perfect for breaking up that overlong sentence with too many words which no-one can stop because one thought leads into another and then into another again until you have forgotten how it all started anyway and now it won't fit into the back of the ute." (page 31) Despite this, I won't be rushing out to read it again.
A fan of poetry might, though.
Completed 21 October 2026.
Previous Book ~ Next Book
Comments
Post a Comment