Anatomy of a Whale

Like all the best poets, Matt Barnard knows how to make poems bigger than themselves; short lyrics like ‘Please Follow the Yellow Line,’ ‘The Day Twilight Went on for Days’ and ‘Border Patrol’ manage to fill the page and the time beyond their reading, treading a nice line in Larkinesque terror. Writers like Charles Boyle and Charles Simic also come to mind in the poet’s highly original and enjoyable metaphors, his ability to draw symbol from the everyday. There are lyrics here on everything from cows named after Jane Fonda and Bette Davis to villanelles about intellectual property and the knotty question of dying hair in middle age. This is a poet with the highest regard for the reader, who offers us poems that lay out a welcome mat, before ushering us into the conservatory to look out at that incredible, incredible view.