Incertus

ISBN 0955798507   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780955798504 (What's this?)   Pages 192 Publisher Netherlea Press   Published in Belfast Imprint Netherlea Press   Height (mm) 199 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 132 Publication date 10 Dec 2007   Academic level General DEWEY 821.9208

It's never useful to create an overview of the contemporary poetry scene by labelling certain poets as belonging to particular movements, sub-genres or factions. History will do this for us -- and do a far more convincing job. But there's no harm in collecting the work of a bunch of interesting poets and presenting it together. If there are a few similarities, all well and good. If not, just enjoy what's before you.
This is, I think, what editor Richard Irvine has tried to do with Incertus. I presume Irvine has borrowed Heaney's pen-name, used when the poet was first starting out. Its a fitting appropriation. Just who Irvine is and what his newly founded publishing house, Netherlea, will provide in the future is a mystery. But if this selection is anything to go by, he's on the right track.
The concept is simple enough. Seven poets present ten poems. Each poet writes a small piece along the lines of why he or she started writing. Seven established poets/critics take one of the poets and offer an analysis of the work. The results are interesting, offering a rare side-by-side presentation of work, personal insights and critical evaluation. Theres also a highly entertaining and insightful preface by Ian Sansom. But what remains -- and what should always remain after the personal and the critical -- are the poems themselves. Several of these young (?) writers have won major awards already and Im fairly confident that all of their futures as poets are secure. I don't mean secure in that they will make a living from poetry, become fixtures in the celestial body, be par t of an academy, or appear on Newsnight Review. I do mean that they will develop a readership, and this, after all, is the poets greatest reward. There is intelligence, wit and an obvious engagement with craft.
There is also evidence that for the Irish writer (or at least the writer based in Ireland), new fields are being ploughed. Heaney's 'Digging' and Mahon's disused sheds are giving way to landscapes beyond the immediate confines of the familial, and the well-trodden territory of the Troubles. This isn't, of course, something that these seven have started. They are not a group -- or even 'The Group', Queen's University Belfast's famous and curious conglomeration of Longley, Heaney, et al. But I suspect they know each other, and each other's work. The North is a small place. This book, however, is not. - Sean Mitchell



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