MmSeason (mand) wrote in to recommend the work of Annemarie Austin, a British poet who lives in Weston-super-Mare.
Very (2008) is Austin’s most recent collection; mand recommends in particular Door upon Door (1999), which she’s currently in the middle of reading. (Note: Door Upon Door is currently out of print, but many of the poems from it have been republished in Very.)
mand, on Austin:
She bowls me over. “We have our own concerns – / as the snail on the stem / slides on its one foot upward, / despite the dragon arriving / through the adjacent trees …” (from “Bystanding”). Many of her poems contain fantasy images, all are compellingly imaginative, and all hold the truth that poetry ought to. Her understanding of sounds, rhythm – and their working together with feelings such as love, nostalgia, or loneliness – is profound and makes the reading of her work a delight worth repeating.
