Minsk: Poems

From the London Zoo to an Essex village and the Arctic Circle, Greenlaw explores elements of place — the childhood landscapes we leave behind, those we travel toward, and those that we believe to be missing from our lives. Greenlaw's restless, inquisitive tone builds to make Minsk a hypnotic collection from one of the leading poets of her generation.

Camel Hair

Every few years it becomes
a question of backbone.
Anhedonia,
not love of winter
but a loss of the feel of the world,
a way ahead of the cold.
Even the cells refuse
to talk to one another.
As black and white
as a two-hour wait on the kerb
of a six-lane arterial road,
in a secondhand straw-coloured Dior coat,
for the last bus and its overload
to accelerate past out of its own
well-oiled backsplash.

"A much-revered English poet makes her American debut with this subtle and consistently polished collection, whose title refers not just to a cold Belarussian capital but to cold hearts and cold shoulders close to home. Greenlaw's brilliantly downcast opening sequence describes a frustrating smalltown childhood, lived 'in a quiet place/ where the undiluted dark of the streets/ without streetlight, had no emphasis.' Poems about piano lessons, kids' antics aimed 'smack dab in the village eye,' 'anhedonia' and a young adult's struggles in London give Greenlaw's careful and sympathetic take on what appears to be her own biography, while similarly deft poems chronicle medieval and fairy tale lives that resemble her own or seek parallels in mythology and zoology. A closing sequence (called, for the prevalent ice, 'A Drink of Glass') follows the poet's trip to the Arctic Circle. Often compared to Elizabeth Bishop, Greenlaw is also a talented novelist (Mary George of Allnorthover), and the quiet triumphs show both her Bishop-like subtlety and her talent for compressed narrative." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"[A] lovely and intelligent collection that asks serious questions about the nature of childhood memory and its presence in our lives....These poems are always musical, and this music is restless and often unexpected." Library Journal

Lavinia Greenlaw is a prize-winning poet and novelist. Minsk is her first collection of poems to be published in the United States. She lives in London.