Roger Robinson 'A Portable Paradise'

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I saw that this won the TS Eliot prize and it looked interesting, so I bought it.

I quite like it. I'm not sure how good it is but it has some powerful images in it and it's coming from a very different perspective to any poetry I've read before.

For those that don't know: born in Hackney, lived in Trinidad until he was 19, and is a dub poet and the lead singer of King Midas Sound.

The collection is largely about Grenfell.

https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/portable-paradise

Wondering if anybody else has read it?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
If you're in a bookshop today pick it up and have a glance through.

It's the only contemporary poetry I've ever read, let alone bought.
 

luka

Well-known member
I looked at a couple of poems online and it doesn't meet my standards. It's school homework level.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I know what you mean, though.

The language doesn't seem particularly intensely charged a lot of the time.

Often I am stuck wondering why this is a poem and not prose.
 
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luka

Well-known member
It is prose. Look also at the way adjectives are yoked to nouns and how rote it is.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's instructive to look at bad writing like this to get a clearer idea of what good writing might look like.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't think it's bad writing, but some of it seems like prose that's been formatted to look like poetry.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's bad writing. Its hokey. It's dull. It's flat. It's banal. It's stuffed full of cliches.
 

luka

Well-known member
Well what do you want me to say? I don't have the book do i? Photograph a page or two and we can analyse it as a class
 

luka

Well-known member
Sneaker Pimps. Attica Blues. Morcheeba. Smith and Mighty. Jazzanova. Lamb. Howie B.
 
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