Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Poets and Poems: Nick Laird and "Feel Free"


It’s like walking into a traditional small bookstore. You see the shelves and tables set out before you. You inhale the smell of paper, ink, and binding. The counter clerk knows the inventory and can make a recommendation within 90 seconds of beginning a conversation. You see an elderly man sitting in an overstuffed chair, adjusting his glasses as he reads.

You think to yourself, “I’ve come home.”

That’s the impression engendered from the very first poem in Feel Free, the newest collection by Irish poet Nick Laird. And that impression is an odd one, given that the first poem (entitled “Glitch”) begins with splitting one’s temple apart after a fall at home. Except like most poems, it’s not really about an accident but about escaping the circumstances we often find ourselves in, creating “the sense / that lasts for hours of being wanted somewhere else.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

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