(concertina pamphlet, 2012) £2 (inc p+p)
A long poem set at the mouth of the Lune estuary, rich in imagery and allusion, place and atmosphere. It examines the relationship between land and sea and sea and man, in layers that connect and distance. Subtle, delicate, confident. A fascinting poem.
"Lune: a leash for a hawk; fits of lunacy; a crescent formed by the overlapping of two circles; a crescent moon; a river whose tidal estuary is at Plover Scar, Lancashire; a poem in five sections by Sarah Hymans printed as a neat concertina or gatefold pamphlet, subject of this review. ...
Lune is a rich addition to this contemporary pastoral tradition: part narrative, part evocation of land- and sea-scape, part metaphysical meditation on what the world is and what it is to be in that world. The title in the first instance derives from the river, but the other definitions of lune that I referred to in the opening paragraph of this review all seemed to me to come to bear on the poem as I read it. The sea is a leash, limiting the walker’s range of movement, the pull of the moon is what creates that intertidal space, the bay’s crescent is formed by sea and land intersecting, and these are all things the poem brings to our mental vision." Billy Mills in Sabotage
Twenty four poems clocking the twenty four hours of the longest day in 2012. This 'hinge' of the year is tracked by transience, evident in the views of streetlamps, hedgerows, cafes, the rising light, swallows, rain, and ultimately the growing dark, its rituals, noises, pathways disappearing ahead.
Poems from Helen Ivory, Andrew McMillan, Wayne Burrows, Jane Routh, Seni Seniviratne, Maya Chowdhry, David Tait and many more.
The voices, the stories, the detail and the imagery are powerful, superbly-crafted and original.
Bernardine Evaristo
"The poetry is earthy and takes a no-nonsense approach to setting out their journey from commuity-based god-fearing and pious, through to the complexity, toughness and verging on faithlessness, of modernity." Anne Stewart in Artemis
... excellent at capturing social and religious codes of behaviour, with the acuity of Austen or Alice Munro ... Host is a tactile and muscular collection, rooted in the complexities and textures of the physical world. Hymas has created fresh and exuberant work that, at its best, captures the awe of being alive." Sarah Westcott
Reading is Believing
This was the commissioned collaborative project when I was poet in residence at Calderdale Libraries, in 2005. A beautiful cloth-bound book was made for the libraries, with my poetry, painting from John Lyons and photography by Hafsah Naib.
To buy or review any of these books, just contact me on sehymas [at] gmail [dot] com
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