The Floating Man

by Katharine Towers

Appropriately for a book haunted by music, Katharine Towers’ poems exhibit an almost pianistic sense of timing, touch and tone. In The Floating Man, Towers writes about weight and weightlessness, presence and absence, the body in space, and our oblique relationship with the natural world, always with a wonderful sense of compositional balance; she is expert at registering the huge emotional shifts effected by the smallest things, whether the scent of apples, the slant of the light, or the grace-notes of memory. Music expresses the things we cannot say, but Towers recruits its power to bring the beyond-words into the realm of speech. The result is a debut of great originality and subtlety.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2010

Reviews

[Bookish Bethany · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel cruel giving this collection two stars - but it was too one-note, too abstract perhaps without the pounding power of recollection and concrete nouns. Perhaps it is just my taste, it feels cruel to rate poetry at all since it speaks to many in many different ways.

Having said this, there are three very, very beautiful poems in this:
- Haunt
- Coast
- The Floating Man
These poems have an ethereal connection with music, the words themselves slip and slide into each other with such ease it made me gasp. If you want to buy this collection, read these three - they have a quiet beauty.

I just didn't *feel* this as one is supposed to feel poetry. My emotional reaction was decidedly muted.

[Jayant Kashyap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not many poets conjure such brilliant images out of plain, smart metaphors.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some beautiful lines, but the poems as a whole are not for me. The poems are nice, but not many stood out. The ones that did: 'Found', 'Haunts', 'In the Oak Wood', 'Bruinhilda', 'Midnight Sun' and 'The Way We Go'.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely poetry here infused with musical language — like, actual musical terms. Good stuff!

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable language. Not the most well-connected poetry I've ever read, and a lot of what you experience from one-to-the-next sounds the same as those that have come before.

The concept of music expressed as prose is good, mind. I mean, in many ways both forms are one-in-the-same.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
Bit of a mixed bag - I loved some of the poems, particularly the 4 line ones - elegant and haunting. Some of the others didn't appeal to me as much. Definitely someone to watch given this is her debut work.

[Sarah westcott · Rating 4 out of 5]

delicacy of thought and language

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely.