A Straight Up Giant

Serious, comic, brave, cowardly, engaged, disengaged, urgent, unurgent, chattering chiffchaff, talking horses, unpretentious, pretentious, all of God’s creatures in Mark Waldron's fifth collection. Some of the poems give unfettered voice to Marcie, a character who has appeared in Mark Waldron's previous books. Serious, comic, brave, cowardly, engaged, disengaged, urgent, unurgent, chattering chiffchaff, talking horses, unpretentious, pretentious, all of God’s creatures are here. There’s also an almost – but not quite – dialogue between the poems and the laconic (and sometimes furious) musings of the passages which punctuate them. There are a series of fairytale poems, and others which give unfettered voice to Marcie, a character who has appeared in Mark Waldron's previous books. Behind the humour and playfulness, there is always something deeply unmeant, meant.