ABOUT THE BOOK
purge fluid, Ivy Allsop. Available here. Published by Hem Press.
MICROREVIEW BY AODÁN MCCARDLE
In the first poem ‘Jonah in a benthic one-hander’ the narrow form of the text on the page is
squeezed: language such as ‘palate’, ‘ammonia’, ‘nuchal’, ‘uvula’ ‘peeling wad’, ‘roof blubber’ tangibly overwhelm the reading mouth. The sudden intervention of a voice both familiar and intimate, ‘These/ are early days, honey’, perfectly displays the dynamic shift in language that we can expect throughout Ivy Allsop’s book, Purge Fluid. We meet lines such as:
In the dwindling stars we oath our hands
p. 17
that allows itself to be read comfortably, rolling onto the tongue and the mind. Then, as we
move on, the poem begins to unravel through the particularity of the word ‘dwindling’. The surprising dynamic of the construction ‘we oath our hands’ needs returning to just to test or taste that phrase’s possibilities again. Re-reading lines is a dynamic of experience rather than understanding in these poems, it’s enough to have read or sung them.
on the shore I slaked myself dislocating
p. 66
my tongue jawing the verdigris mud
having mineral deposits form new teeth.
demean yourself to a tool with me
so we can crack our teeth like bread
at ritual tables
There is no reduced equivalence or adjectival retreat. We are not at a removal from the author’s making but instead are subject to the labour, ‘of employ’ p.44, entailed in the expanse of a gorged environment of words. There are of course marker stones, artists such
as Richter and Ernst. There are place names in titles that lead to ecological disasters, massacres, eco and ethno-geographic mires in Mirny, Tjentište, the Poelsie State Radioecological reserve. There are Cephlaphores and Saprophage and Mycology, ‘in a thoughtless torrent, mouth bulbous with fungi’ p.44, that dive into the sticky matter of the organic and Baldr and Jonah pulling material out of our shared myths but really it is the way the words almost encrust the page as if the materials released on reading are too much to be contained in the carbon that will have your ‘tongue jawing the verdigris’.
ABOUT OUR MICROREVIEWS
At Osmosis, our reviewers are encouraged to respond to and review work creatively. The only formal limitation is a word count guide of 250 words. Short, sweet and with a little bite. We see reviews as a chance to converse, whether that’s about form, creative practice, ideas or language. Interested in reviewing with us? Have a book you’d like to see reviewed? Contact our Reviews Editor, Jayd Green.
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