#ourgh I don't read enough poetry

[the-rolling-libero]

ough I’m reading Steve Ely’s incendium amoris rn and it just feels tailored to me as an individual so perfectly it’s almost making me angry?? who published this specifically for me??? 

Like the poem “Jerusalem,” about, essentially, maps-- 

Pathfinder-- Doncaster, Dearne, Old Street

In Elmet, from Strafford to Tanshelf via Beacon. 

And did those feet? Agricola, Hengist, 

the ceorl in charge of the king’s gerfalcon. 

Muck between the toes, Holy Communion.

...

Stump-scratting in bluebells with metal detectors, 

endymion non-scripta. Rusted shire-shoe,

crown of the witch pricking king...

is delighting me in a way that feels so tailored!! I want to type out the entire thing but will have to do so later bc I’m too busy reading it. It’s the first thing I’ve read in a while that I don’t feel like cares whether I have any idea what’s going on or not, and I love that-- and that I often do, despite this! 

It’s also capturing the ease of language that you see in medieval poetry that I think we miss in a lot of English-- it moves between Latin, English, and Middle English very purposefully, but always gracefully. The most obvious example of it is this neat little pair of lines that I keep murmuring to myself just to feel the words--

Lego latine, scribo latine, 

in Anglicus cogito. In Englisc ic singe. 

This isn’t really a put together review or anything but it’s a great time! 

#its got this image of a time travelling wizard from a 70s show as well thats such a tongue in cheek way to do it #bc time is very blurred #but there's an informality to the modernity-- it's not grandiose in being historical #very interested in details and textures rather than sweeping statements #ourgh I don't read enough poetry