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Not on the Side of the Gods
by Anna Crowe
Anna Crowe writes to rescue obscure stories and give a voice to things that have no voice. Her poems celebrate the mystery and diversity of the natural world while mourning its fragility. Birds fly in and out of poems in which lurk extraordinary invertebrates and strange plants; the vulnerability of human lives and family relationships is another concern. One of the foremost translators of Catalan poetry into English, her appetite for language is rooted in her love of music. The Poetry Book Society selectors described her poems as "sinewy and questing, alive with memory and attentive to the interior landscape".
I read Not On The Side Of The Gods with growing admiration. It was like wandering through a fabulous living museum, filled with places and plants, birds and other creatures and, often, most movingly, with the people they call to mind. Anna Crowe builds for each vulnerable creature a house of jewelled words. What I came away with was not just the richness and precision of her descriptions but a cornucopia of sounds, not least the wonderful music of her voice.
With their inviting blend of elegance and musicality, and captivating breadth of cultural reference, Anna Crowe's poems offer an illuminating insight into the marvels of and uncanny links between the natural world and its creatures, and the shifts of light and shade in our own lives — most touchingly, when vulnerable and bereft. The poems are both celebratory and imbued with a heart-stopping tenderness and sense of loss.
Pbk: 9781911469919
Hbk: 9781911469926
Published September 2019
