Parallax

by Sinéad Morrissey

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 69
Rating:

Synopsis:

Capturing David Niven on a magical marble escalator to heaven in 1946, recording L. S. Lowry’s studio after his death, and peering into the illicit worlds of the Victorian Mutoscope, these poems document what is caught, and what is lost, when houses and cityscapes, servants and saboteurs are arrested in time by photography. Assured and unsettling, Sinéad Morrissey’s poems explore the paradoxes in what is seen, read, and misread in the surfaces of the presented world.

Winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2013

I thought that Sinéad Morrissey’s Parallax was technically good — several moments of “ah, I see what you did there” or “that’s interesting”, but it didn’t really sink in for me somehow? I didn’t feel any hook in the gut or particular connection with the poems, even the ones that felt quite personal (though some of these were not autobiographical, to be clear: Morrissey tries on a few different voices, but that sort of thing can still feel personal!).

It was all… fine… but I didn’t pick out anything I particularly wanted to quote or save. I guess Sinéad Morrissey’s poetry isn’t quite for me, even though I found it technically good and accessible enough to read.

I’d maybe try something else by Morrissey in future, but I wouldn’t go out of my way.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)