JH Prynne Poems 2016-2024 reviewed in The Guardian & The Telegraph
‘While one might have expected an update of Prynne’s already monumental Poems, the arrival of more than 700 pages of new work is a remarkable turn of events.’ – David Wheatley, The Guardian (Poetry Books of the Month)
JH Prynne is Britain’s leading late Modernist poet. His austere yet playful poetry challenges our sense of the world, not by any direct address to the reader but by showing everything in a different light, enacting slips and changes of meaning through shifting language. When his Poems was first published in 1999, it was immediately acclaimed as a landmark in modern poetry. Four further collections were added to the second edition of Poems in 2005, followed by a further seven along with a group of uncollected poems to the third edition of Poems (2015).
The decade since Poems (2015) has been the most productive period of Prynne's life, with over thirty limited editions published between 2017 and 2023. To have added these to a fourth edition of Poems would have doubled the size of that volume. Poems 2016–2024 is therefore a separate, supplementary edition of his later work, including, except for minor corrections, the mostly unchanged contents of 36 texts written since Poems (2015).
Poems: 2016-2024 was published by Bloodaxe in hardback and paperback editions on 27 June 2024. It is distribtued in the USA and Australia by Consortium Book Sales.
US ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
Rain Taxi Review of Books, Winter 2024-2025 online edition
A brilliant review of JH Prynne’s Poems 2016–2024 is featured in the Winter online edition of the American magazine Rain Taxi Review of Books. The review was posted online on 22 January 2025..
‘Since his 300-page 1982 gathering Poems, which collected all he felt worth preserving at the time, Prynne has delivered three subsequent “bricks”: 1999, 2005, and 2015, the last of which approached 700 pages. Now at eighty-eight years old, he’s added the equally colossal addendum Poems: 2016-2024. It is a magnificent, startling output during what might be the poet’s closing years of writing life. […] The expanse of Prynne’s output during these last eight years is astounding. Poems: 2016-2024 shows an unparalleled poet holding forth at the height of his powers...’ – Patrick James Dunagan, Rain Taxi Review of Books
https://raintaxi.com/poems-2016-2024/
AUSTRALIAN ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
Overland Literary Journal, online 19 December 2024
Australian poet John Kinsella reviewed JH Prynne’s Poems 2016–2024 in depth online in Australia’s Overland Literary Journal on 19 December 2024. John Kinsella recently chose this title as one of his books of the year in Australian Book Review.
‘Poems 2016-2024 is a massive, vibrant and immersive collation of JH Prynne’s small press publication across this period. Some would call it a late life creative flourish, a glorious coda, but I don’t see it this way. Rather, this is an accumulation of concerns across a lifetime that have both relied on earlier form work and newly “discovered” expressions of genre (in poetry, and generally speaking) that require recasting, resaying, and varying.’ – John Kinsella, Overland Literary Journal
https://overland.org.au/2024/12/reading-jh-prynne-aloud-poems-2016-2024/
BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2024
Australian Book Review, Books of the Year 2024, December 2024, No 471
Australian poet John Kinsella chose Poems: 2016-2024 as one of his books of the year in Australian Book Review.
'J.H. Prynne’s Poems 2016-2024 is an essential addition to his Poems (third edition, 2015) as he continues to open new paths into liberating the English lyric and contesting global power structures. The range of innovation is fully evident as is his tireless rereading of texts we might take for granted.' – John Kinsella, Australian Book Review (Books of the Year 2024)
Read the full feature online here.
John Kinsella also chose Poems: 2016-2024 for an online books of the year feature in The Australian of 28 December 2024.
'I was overwhelmed by J.H. Prynne’s Poems 2016-2024, which manages to be massive and iconoclastic at once, carrying this late-modernist’s work into new zones of innovation and action.' – John Kinsella, The Australian (Best Books of 2024)
REVIEW COVERAGE
The Poetry Review, Autumn 2024
J H Prynne's Poems 2016–2024 was reviewed in the Autumn 2024 issue of The Poetry Review.
'Prynne’s late work is full of restless punkish energy, a willingness to reach and extend the reader, and a commitment to plough a furrow so idiosyncratic that it occasionally reads like self-parody. There is a richness in his writing, and it only grows richer with each successive decade, this last one now forming a 752-page treasure trove of its own.' – Andrew Spragg, The Poetry Review
Available in print and online: https://poetrysociety.org.uk/book-review-unsteady-eddy/
FEATURE REVIEW COVERAGE IN THE TELEGRAPH
The Telegraph, Poetry Book of the Month, Saturday 15 June 2024
John Clegg of the London Review Bookshop reviewed Poems 2016–2024 as his Poetry Book of the Month for The Telegraph. In print in the Review section on Saturday 15 June 2024 and available online by subscription.
'J H Prynne’s work is difficult, but (unlike the work of many other difficult poets) it is not at all cryptic. There’s no sense of meaning being withheld or obscured; nothing cries out for elucidation. It doesn’t mean, in that sense, at all, and if instead of getting annoyed by it you allow yourself to be swept away, it is buffeting and exhilarating, not at all like any other poetry in the world.' – John Clegg, The Telegraph (Poetry Book of the Month)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/best-poetry-books-2024-reviews-month/#june
PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEW IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poetry Books of the Month, Saturday 4 May 2024
David Wheatley reviewed JH Prynne’s Poems 2016–2024 in his best recent poetry round-up for May. This appeared online on 3 May and in print in The Guardian’s Saturday magazine on 4 May ahead of the book’s publication on 27 June.
‘While one might have expected an update of Prynne’s already monumental Poems, the arrival of more than 700 pages of new work is a remarkable turn of events […] Here is a book to keep us busy for a very long time.’ – David Wheatley, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/may/03/the-best-recent-poetry-review-roundup
David Wheatley's in-depth review of JH Prynne’s Poems (Third Edition) was featured in The Guardian in May 2015. Still available online.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/08/poems-jh-prynne-review
ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
SCOOP, online 1 July 2024
Howard Davies reviewed Poems 2016–2024 in depth online in New Zealand's SCOOP on 1 July 2024.
'I would like to conclude with what Prynne’s poetry both evokes and invokes for me personally. Perhaps no adjective better describes the modulations, dissonances, and distillations of his language than alchemical. Like a strong solvent, it converts images, concepts, symbols, and metaphors into a mysterious transparent liquid of camphorous odour which, by its mellifluous resonances, suggests the perpetual alienation and interchange of idea and impulse.' – Howard Davies, SCOOP, on Poems 2016-2024
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU2407/S00009/yearning-for-a-spoon-the-late-poems-of-jh-prynne.htm
Litter magazine, online 16 June 2024
An in-depth review of Poems 2016–2024 by Ian Brinton went online in Litter magazine on 16 June 2024.
'Etymological derivations have always mattered immensely to Prynne [...] Prynne’s determined craft of language connects our world of the Now with the world of our Past.' – Ian Brinton, Litter magazine, on Poems 2016–2024
https://www.littermagazine.com/2024/06/review-poems-2016-to-2024-by-j-h-prynne.html
Sidecar (New Left Review), online 31 May 2024
J H Prynne’s Poems 2016–2024 was well reviewed in great depth on New Left Review’s blog Sidecar on 31 May ahead of the book’s publication on 27 June.
‘What I love about Snooty Tipoffs – and Poems 2016-2024 in general – is that Prynne resists the grave reverie of silence, the late whispers we encounter in Ezra Pound or Samuel Beckett. Instead, the poet blows raspberries, laughs his head off.’ – Luke Roberts, Sidecar (New Left Review)
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/raspberries
Jeremy Noel-Tod featured JH Prynne on his Some Flowers Soon blog of 21 June 2024. He included the text of his Sunday Times review of Poems (2015), along with reading notes for Poems: 2016-2024. Available online in full by subscription here.
[03 May 2024]
