Against Gravity
Against Gravity
Available now from Two Rivers Press
Against Gravity: the title branches into two distinct clusters of meaning. One is our struggle with mortality as we age; the other, the pleasures of play, uplift, creative aspiration. Robert Saxton’s latest poetry book is dedicated to a friend whose heart gave out on a Scottish mountain. But in counterpoint to the elegaic, it offers humour too, sometimes with dark undertones.
Each section of the book has its own flavour. Father, mother and friend are commemorated in one group of poems that also deals with transience more generally; another group turns a bemused eye on topics from Nero’s theatre to trouser suits for modern brides. The collection concludes with a 68-stanza visit to Vita Sackville-West’s garden at Sissinghurst, exploring intergenerational friendship as well as Vita’s visionary genius and unconventional love life.
Placing sparkling entertainment alongside rueful reflection, Against Gravity delivers surprises on every page. The late Queen Elizabeth II, the pitfalls of indexing, a bat roost in a Portuguese library, the Hollywood sign, cheating in an exam, Dutch elm disease – wherever his focus falls, Saxton shows his trademark qualities of accomplished craftsmanship, precise observation, and a relish for life’s teeming variety, often seen from vividly dramatised viewpoints.
SELECTED POEMS
EVERYWHERE SHE GOES
Money is coarse. Her subjects take the taint.
The humble glow. They smile their Sunday best.
And everywhere she goes the Queen smells paint.
She’s there for them that is and them that ain’t.
Toffs drop their aitches in the jabberfest.
Money is coarse. Her subjects take the taint.
Some pilgrims sell their souls to view the saint,
her crown more halo than its jewels attest.
And everywhere she goes the Queen smells paint.
Jewels outshine cash – imperially quaint,
like stars, the wearer’s heavenly worth unguessed.
Money is coarse. Her subjects take the taint.
Having paid her prince’s ransom in restraint,
she pales, as shame starts rising in the west.
And everywhere she goes the Queen smells paint.
Her haughty steeds clop fictional and faint.
One groom is sacked before he’s even dressed.
Money is coarse. Her subjects take the taint.
And everywhere she goes the Queen smells paint.
