Ark by Estill Pollock

English poet Estill Pollock’s new collection is an ARK built to weather the flood of 21st century life.

“I have nothing left / To offer, except this poem,” Estill Pollock declares around the midpoint of his new collection ARK, and for anyone else this might seem an apology or lament; but Pollock’s poems encompass multitudes, and offer the reader entire worlds. His title of course suggests both a means of safety and sanctuary (the title of one section here), as well as a repository of sacred texts, and both are apt descriptions for this volume.

His hierophantic language demands much from the reader, but rewards in equal measure, and pleasure. His scope ranges over time and space, “in data streams / Of stars,” from “Neanderthals in Paris” to “AI execution codes” and “Cryptocurrency blockchain” carrying us over rising tides of (literal) water and war and all manner of floods that threaten to engulf us. A long account of “London in those times / Of empire” makes up much of the middle section; and even though it has been decades since he left his native America he devotes specific attention to its problematic history, and present. “Mason-Dixon” recounts the Original Sin of slavery, while more recently he observes how “American democracy eats / Its young—pockets emptied to Big Pharma / Big Banks, murder-cop trials, neo-Nazi podcast / Or demagogue variant QAnon.”

“Old worlds give up their dead,” he observes, “a skull / In tidal mud, looted barrows, souvenirs / Of species an archived fidelity, as though / We were disappearing from our own lives.” But Pollock’s ARK is here to preserve us. “This is about everything, and nothing” – in which respect it perfectly resembles life.

Estill Pollock’s publications include Constructing the Human (Poetry Salzburg, 2001) and the book cycle Relic Environments Trilogy (Cinnamon Press, Wales, 2012). His recent poetry collections, ENTROPY (2021) and TIME SIGNATURES (2022), are published by Broadstone Books. He lives in Norfolk, England.

Ark
by Estill Pollock
Pub Date: 8/15/2023
Publisher: Broadstone Books
ISBN 978-1-956782-43-1
Binding: PAPERBACK
Pages: 92
Price: $ 26.00

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