Nicholas Johnson (3)

Handsome book. Thick paper, clear printing, page numbers halfway up the long edge, copyright tucked in the middle where unseen, cover simple and well arranged, feel of a slab of limestone. Contents one long poem, "Pelt", one shorter poem, "B. Splinter". Pelt in two large parts, several shorter sections. First part childhood in Dartmoor?Devonshire?, presence of brother (title of first part: "The Two Brothers"), there is a farm, there is nature, there are games, being a boy, becoming a young man, don't relate but things to dwell on. Second part brother still there but less prominent; lots of the Who, music in general; also sex; he's growing up. But I find it harder to pull things out of this part, the memories are more recent but less clear, perhaps less vivid, maybe he's drunk. Does the brother die? A drowning? (Title of the second part: "Shore Body".) Some odd spellings, dialect? But some hard to grasp, doubled letters for why, and what is a chapple? One lineation joke I understood: "cata / logued like Homer". B. Splinter just four pages, at centre a bee squashed on car windscreen, but bumbles into other areas, a woodsman cutting useless passages and inappropriate pages out of books. Shouldn't be writing about this, not for me, the words glazed under my eye. There is something here I cannot find. Try again?… (mer)