A Quiet Triumph

This was that rarity - a bookshop purchase. I went into collect something else, browsed through the shelves, and picked up a book I’d never heard of. I hadn’t read a review, there were no blurb quotes on the cover, and it was more expensive than most but hey, I treated myself.

I’m so glad I did. Smart Devices, by Carol Rumens, is a collection of fifty-two “poems for the week” from The Guardian. She picks the poems, and writes about two and half pages of commentary, and that’s it. But it’s just a brilliant primer for poetry analysis, as well as an introduction to a wide range of poets and poems.

I’d heard of a few of them, but not most, and it’s obvious that Rumens is reading voraciously all the time, frequently referring to other poems in a particular poet’s collection. There’s a massive range of style, tone and form, but the constant elements are Rumens’ enthusiasm for what she’s reading, and the intelligence she brings to bear. Why she isn’t celebrated in e same way as J Bell or Jane Commane I don’t know,but she should be.