Heartland

Michele Leggott's new book of poetry follows on from her 2009 collection, Mirabile Dictu, in its exploration of light and of gathering dark. Leggott is a poet of the lilting, shining moment and the sections here follow some of her own moments and movements, experiments and experiences to Devonport, to Australia, to the north as well as reverberating with the stories and histories of others. The book's final two sections take this exploration of character and narrative further as in one we see off a soldier shadowed by Leggott to the First World War; and in the other set in an earlier, unspecified time charted for us by telegraphic weather reports a family tragedy unfolds, until a body is finally brought home for burial. With her 'dear shapes gone to sound', Leggott's textured poem-scapes are more aurally charged than ever, like a 'piano in a dark room that is / quite what it is like and never the same'. A splendid, immersive...