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Across the landscape of current poetry, multiple new collections make a mark for their unique styles and subjects.

So Far So Good by Ursula K Le Guin

The ultimate collection from the acclaimed author, sent just before her demise, holds a title that might seem ironic, however with Le Guin, definiteness is seldom simple. Famed for her science fiction, several of these poems too delve into journeys, both in this world and beyond. A particular piece, Orpheus's Demise, envisions the ancient figure traveling to the underworld, at which point he finds the one he seeks. Further poems focus on everyday subjects—cattle, feathered friends, a tiny creature slain by her cat—yet even the most insignificant of creatures is granted a spirit by the poet. Landscapes are portrayed with lovely simplicity, on occasion under threat, elsewhere celebrated for their grandeur. Images of death in the environment point the audience to ponder age and death, in some cases embraced as an aspect of the order of things, elsewhere resented with bitterness. Her own impending end takes center stage in the last meditations, where hope mingles with hopelessness as the human frame declines, nearing the finish where security disappears.

Thrums by Thomas A Clark

An environmental poet with restrained inclinations, Clark has developed a approach over five decades that eliminates many conventions of lyric poetry, like the personal voice, narrative, and meter. Rather, he brings back poetry to a simplicity of observation that provides not poems about nature, but nature itself. The writer is nearly absent, serving as a sounding board for his milieu, relaying his observations with precision. There is no forming of content into individual narrative, no revelation—instead, the body becomes a means for absorbing its surroundings, and as it leans into the downpour, the identity fades into the terrain. Glimpses of fine silk, willowherb, deer, and birds of prey are delicately blended with the terminology of harmony—the hums of the heading—which calms viewers into a state of unfolding consciousness, caught in the instant preceding it is processed by the mind. The poems depict nature's degradation as well as aesthetics, asking queries about concern for threatened creatures. But, by changing the recurring inquiry into the sound of a wild creature, Clark demonstrates that by identifying with nature, of which we are always a element, we may locate a way.

Sculling by Sophie Dumont

If you like getting into a canoe but occasionally have trouble getting into modern verse, the could be the volume you have been hoping for. The heading points to the practice of driving a vessel using a pair of paddles, simultaneously, but also brings to mind skeletons; watercraft, death, and liquid blend into a powerful brew. Grasping an blade, for Dumont, is similar to holding a writing instrument, and in a particular verse, viewers are informed of the parallels between poetry and kayaking—because on a waterway we might know a city from the echo of its structures, poetry chooses to look at the world in a new way. An additional work details Dumont's training at a boating association, which she rapidly comes to see as a haven for the doomed. The is a well-structured set, and subsequent verses continue the motif of liquid—with a breathtaking recollection of a dock, instructions on how to stabilize a kayak, descriptions of the water's edge, and a comprehensive proclamation of river rights. You won't get wet reading this volume, unless you pair your poetry reading with heavy drinking, but you will emerge purified, and conscious that individuals are largely made of H2O.

Magadh by Shrikant Verma

Similar to certain writerly journeys of legendary metropolises, Verma creates depictions from the ancient South Asian kingdom of the ancient land. The palaces, fountains, places of worship, and roads are now silent or have crumbled, inhabited by waning recollections, the aromas of attendants, malevolent entities that reanimate the dead, and revenants who walk the debris. This domain of the deceased is brought to life in a language that is stripped to the fundamentals, however paradoxically exudes energy, vibrancy, and feeling. An verse, a soldier shuttles without purpose to and fro ruins, posing queries about reiteration and significance. First released in the Indian language in the 1980s, soon prior to the author's demise, and at present available in the English language, this unforgettable work echoes powerfully in the present day, with its harsh images of cities obliterated by invading troops, leaving naught but rubble that occasionally cry out in protest.