Lois Potter
Cohen’s Shadow
These are public poems; some of them, like the title song, are available on record, sung by the poet. They are the work of a man who knows that he has a public voice, and that his fans are curious about the private man behind it.
And at first sight the collection seems to offer all that even the nosiest fan could desire: ‘You might like to know what my wife said to me upstairs’ (‘I Like the Way You Opposed Me’); ‘My son clapped his hands over the jam’ (‘Early This Morning’); ‘My wife and I made love this afternoon’ (My Wife and I’); ‘Her buttocks relax in my hands/like meat fresh killed (‘O Wife Unmasked’). These domestic revelations are interspersed with glimpses of other women, divided neatly into the ‘fucked’ and the ‘unfucked’. There seem to be a great many of the former; the latter are mostly underage, foreign, or behind glass.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Chuffed to be on the Curiosity Pill 2020 round-up for my @Lit_Review piece on swimming, which I cannot wait to get back to after 10+ months away https://literaryreview.co.uk/different-strokes https://twitter.com/RNGCrit/status/1351922254687383553
'The authors do not shrink from spelling out the scale of the killings when the Rhodesians made long-distance raids on guerrilla camps in Mozambique and Zambia.'
Xan Smiley on how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-the-secret-agent-saw
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad