The Ice Age

Following on from the success of his debut collection, The Boy From the Chemist is Here to See You, these poems by Paul Farley display a mastery of form and a wonderful use of imagery and instinctively rhythmic touch that turn everyday experiences and objects into things of beauty. Themes range from childhood experiences - lying on the floor like 'dead fish in uniform' during a wet school lunch hour and remembering a field guide to birds as 'an index of wishful thinking' - to the study of mundane objects such as a diary with its symbols of moons, or a phone book, 'a city reduced to these pages', which take on a deeper, philosophical meaning beyond their physical existence. Something as ordinary and tedious as a train journey is lifted to a higher plane in two poems. In 'Weekend First' two lines encapsulate Farley's sensitive and measured use of rhythm and image: 'I'll raise a weighted stem/to my homeland scattering by', and in 'A Tunnel' we actually feel the jolt as the train enters a tunnel and experience the anxious wish to emerge, reflected in a cascading of lines into one another and the likening of the sound to that of a cube of chalk rattling around in a puncture repair kit. There are also longer and more personal poems such as the elegiac 'Landing Stage' addressed to an unresponsive and wheelchair-bound woman (his mother?) and 'Thorns' in which stark and violent images combine with strong language in an angry outpouring. This is an accomplished collection of remarkable assurance and depth which deserves to be widely enjoyed. (Kirkus UK)