Shaler's Fish: Poems

I read this after H is for Hawk (which I loved) and was disappointed. I had to work a little too hard to understand what she was saying and even harder to care. Didn't make it to the end.

"H Is for Hawk" is genuinely outstanding. Do not expect more of the same in this collection.Unfortunately, I find it difficult to believe this collection of poetry would have been published at all if not for the wild success of the other book. The poetry here was previously published by a small press in Britain, but, as far as I can tell, none of it had been published in any literary journals or magazines. Surprising, given how poetry publication works. Hardly a conclusive point, but it adds to my suspicion that his collection is more about a publisher fishing for income than an effort to put out new work.Macdonalds' poetry appears highly intellectual. I say appears, because I was not sufficiently enticed to do the work of interpretation. Nabokov and John Ashbery are intellectual, but, first, you are drawn to read closely, and, second, on close reading you find there's a there there. Intellectual isn't enough to make work good or engaging. The poetry here is certainly earnest, but that's not enough to make writing good or engaging either.

There are some poetry collections that rock you, shake you to the core. Some are so beautifully written that you can’t help but read them out loud. Then there are collections in which you find yourself reading, and re-reading, and re-re-reading and just not getting. That last one was my experience with Shaler’s Fish, a collection that’s dense, and complicated, and cryptic, and stylistically challenging, and just something I didn’t click with. I really had to push to finish the collection and truly, if you don’t like the first one, skip, because that general feeling of “what did I just read?” without the smiles and wonder was what dominated my experience. I’m not saying it’s poorly written, I’m saying I didn’t get it and the 2 stars comes because I can see the skill and craft even if I can’t connect or much appreciate it. I don’t need my poetry to be simplistic, but at least somewhat accessible would be nice. Alas, what I found was a collection where I didn’t understand what I was reading and only on occasion did I see lines that were lovely, but were then followed by very elevated language, odd punctuation and line splits and so much “poetrishness” that I just couldn’t break into the meaning the poems had for me. Oh well, they can’t all be 4 and 5 star books :)

I love all Helen Macdonald's prose, but I could not understand a single line of this poetry. Which is a bit odd because I read quite a lot of poetry.Had to give up and delete