cento

lucid, precise

beautiful contemplative

strange and impressive

fresh and exciting

ambitious and brave

surprising and spiritual

genuine and believeable

absolutely original and indispensable

intelligent, impeccably crafted

challenged and subtly reinvented

intensely observant, gravely acute

one of the freshest and most exhilarating

rife with gentle subversions and awakenings

linguistically daring and delightfully inventive

personal without self-absorption, clever without cleverness

by turns heaving with lightness and bright with heaviness

well-pitched, finely patched ensemble of pieces

lively, vital and accomplished

passionately intelligent, precise and dexterous

spontaneous, sparkling with energy and insight

mystery, luminosity and forgetting the maps

engaged, at times anguished, always finely tuned

destabilizing, self-mocking and periodically nihilistic

thoughtful, unshowy resonance, that can also be very funny

unsentimental, pervasively witty and ostensibly anti-poetic

vivid, strong, sinuous, beautifully rendered

swash-buckling in language, maverick yet very funny in strategy, and shot through with painful intelligence

sonorous, yes, but also snarky; lyrical and yet perky—dare I say perky?

surface tension which sharpens the edges of these elegant, moving, funny

a palpable, earthy presence and its accordant pathos of memory or displacement

suffused in irony, creating odd juxtapositions, alternatingly enigmatic and direct

humane, passionate and wonderfully varied; at once visionary and restless

by turns energetic, exuberant, exasperated; hip, antipathetic, pathetic; attentive, fantastic, fed-up, ridiculous, serious

utterly contemporary in their relish of popular culture, daring in their treatment of the slippery politics of business and literature, and coolly haunting as they manoeuvre in and out of the marginalised lyric centres of private love and mourning.

loss, presence, and the haunting persistence of language to redeem what has vanished

spells and sonorous soundings that have the power to frighten, seduce or enchant

strong, angular bones of their language

hard-won gems of insight

structured symmetry and clarity of purpose it would be hard to miss

like the trappings of a furnished imagination, a place of poetic sanctuary

places where the personal and the cosmic touch, where the body and the sky seem to inhabit the same skin

a sustained luminescence in it: an exuberance of feeling, wit and a nimble sentience

a fusion of the surreal and the domestic, the strategic and the spontaneous—where perception is

a gospel of giddy slippage, employing gentle send ups of classic literary and movie genre tropes, with each crazy yet meditative detail delivered in tones of calm fatalism

a monument: vivid, grave, sorrowful, angry and powerfully constructed, a human act of commemoration

an intense, haunting voice, perfectly capturing psychical and physical states in some astonishing imagery

a steady-eyed, lightly carried humanity which presents things as they are but also transfigures

an erotic bittersweet evocation while reining back from the merely crude or potentially obscene

an unutterable sadness — a longing that can only be felt but hardly spoken of

also a heady, gleeful abstraction in these beautiful and eccentric

as fine an example of sampling as I’ve come across

forceful exercises in the creation of a compelling subjectivity

laconic satire slipping under the wire of our complacencies

versatile imagination explores diverse subjects in a linguistically inventive style that varies in tone from sardonic to compassionate

the spiritual awakening (probably more accurately described as expansion) of the speaker speaks of death and breaks your heart––you’ll end up wanting to see everything through his eyes

remarkable for their charm, freshness and agility

the most provocatively intelligent reaction to the general drift of mainstream poetry

wrenches language and syntax to deliver to you an edgy and unique perspective

seems to have hit that fine balance between allusiveness and clarity, and formal control and spontaneity

manage to seem unnervingly direct while coming at you from the most unexpected angles

cheeks the character's self-pitying hesitation to call himself a poet, celebrates his disappointments and listlessness, and neatly contrasts the 'poetry of commerce' with what the poet-hero produces

hold reverie, history and present moments in images that burn beneath every line; scenes develop and move through time seamlessly

register, lament, react to and wrestle with erosions on multiple fronts — psychic, social, historical, somatic

out of the speculative and reflective into the active and shapely, incorporating a performative element that complicates our understanding of “meta-text”

purity that transmutes into flint-like brilliance

build towards a contained, steady precision

move from immersion in tragic events towards catharsis, from suffering to wisdom

moves from the lyrical to the analytical with an apparent seamlessness

moves from an exploration of language as the material of information to an emergent lyricism of facticity as n-dimensional space

moves beautifully, wittily and indeed bravely

lighting out for unmapped and radiant territory