Six Children

by Mark Ford

'Though unmarried I have had six children, ' Walt Whitman claimed in a letter late in his life. The title poem of Mark Ford's third collection imagines the great poet's getting of these mysterious children, of whom no historical trace has ever emerged. Conception and extinction dominate this extraordinary new volume from one of the country's most exciting poets; it includes a lament for the passing of the passenger pigeon, a sestina on the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya (where the poet was born), a chance encounter with a seventy-year-old Hart Crane in Greenwich Village, an elegy for Mick Imlah (whose Selected Poems Ford has edited for Faber), and a moving tribute to that weirdest of religious sects, the Munster Anabaptists. Six Children is Ford's most formally varied and historically wide-ranging volume. It is sure to win many new admirers for a poet whose work has been championed by such as Helen Vendler, John Bayley, Barbara Everett, and John Ashbery.

Genres: Poetry

61 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

Reviews

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 1 out of 5]

mostly about religion. didn’t care one bit

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

A funny little piece & an interesting blend of influences. Ford has a lot of classical adaptation going on with use of Catullus Lucretius Sappho various patristics Pliny Boethius so forth. Also he’s been paying attention to contemporary Irish poets and it would seem there’s an Ashbery link though I wish it were more. I didn’t find it dazzling exactly though there’s lots of potential in his centos and so forth

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of "Soft Sift" (I know you're out there) won't be disappointed.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this book without knowing anything about Mark Ford, and was pleasantly surprised. It is a nice collection comprising a mixture of poetry styles and influences which I found interesting. I'm certainly no expert but I feel like there were some fun subversions of more formal poetic forms which I enjoyed reading.

My favourite two poems were 'The Passing of the Passenger Pigeon' and 'Decree Nisi'.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed:
Invisible Hand
The Death of Hart Crane
After Africa
Ravished
Gregory of Nazianzus
The Munster Anabaptists
Decree Absolute

[Frank Ashe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed. Some of the early poems were good, but the last ones left me cold.