Jamie Sharpe is one of my favourite poets because of his offbeat aim at subjects. His poetry is irreverent but not ironic. He dips toes in the surreal but not in shrugging off culpability to the world but as an angle of play with it.
The poems are precise and densely written. One can not predict where the whip of a line may flash. "Then an arrogant array of electrical cables./ The sole country with a way to disentangle//Authority from a noose." As you can see poems move from surface to depth nimbly, intriguingly.
In his latest collection, Michael Hofmann: Poems, Jamie Sharpe combines his visual art with his poems that somehow make sense under the words. For example, in "Project Status",
We’re an atom’s long shadow,
Practical like metal pillows
For the iron Fist.
No casualties,
Except wind and rain,
& rescue workers.
Complementary to his poetry is his account where he spoofs the Poet Technology (an optical interposer company, as opposed to Poet industries, an actual bioethanol company). See more about Jamie's previous book.
See you at the fair Sat. Nov 19th. I'll have some earlier titles on hand as well.
