Book cover for Material Properties

Material Properties

Synopsis

Details

16 February 2023
80 pages
9781035000081
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

The poems have an unforced charm, delighting in the wonder that surrounds us
Polley’s grasp . . . is masterful, and the book is a delight. He succeeds in echoing the texture of his poetic forebears, but with a wry panache which is all his own.
What sustains these playful, wise, gentle lyrics is Polley’s technical skill. Longer poems are activated and maintained by their musicality and by a particular way with syntax that seeks to give texture and topography to the poems. One feels them as one is delighted by them
How often do you come across a book you read again and again and always with increasing pleasure? It’s the quality of the writing that draws me back, both rooted and adventuring, elegant yet at ease in different registers and vocabularies … Jacob Polley’s language reaches to the heart of his subjects