{"id":5167,"date":"2015-12-31T06:42:31","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T05:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167"},"modified":"2016-01-23T14:10:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T13:10:55","slug":"carl-phillips-reconnaisance-farrar-strauss-giroux-23-00-reviewed-by-ian-pople","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167","title":{"rendered":"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance<\/em> (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carl Phillips has long been feted as a subtle and dexterous technician.\u00a0 In a\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0review, Dan Chiasson pushes Phillips forward as a \u2018candidate for the author of the most interesting contemporary English sentences\u2019.\u00a0 A Phillips poem may consist of anything between 10 and 15 lines, each part of one or two long sentences.\u00a0 Such sentences may lead to what Chiasson has also suggested is the sense of arrival in Phillips\u2019 work, as opposed to a sense of conclusion.\u00a0 This sense of process as against narrative may force the reader of Phillips\u2019 poems to a feeling of wallowing, a kind of waiting within the poem.\u00a0 And it is testament to Phillips\u2019 astonishing skill, that this waiting never feels strained.<\/p>\n

A tension, however, pervades this sense of waiting.\u00a0 There is often, in this volume more than Phillips\u2019 other books, a feeling of \u2018a disturbance in the force\u2019.\u00a0 Phillips\u2019 poems adumbrate a feeling that wholeness is out there, but it lies slightly out of reach.\u00a0 The opening and title poem of his new book begins, \u2018All the more elegant forms of cruelty, I\u2019m told, begin\/ with patience. I have practiced patience.\u2019\u00a0 But the \u2018cruelty\u2019 which the poem appears to focus on, is laid underneath \u2018elegance\u2019 and \u2018patience\u2019 which is repeated and emphasised with the second simple sentence.\u00a0 And we note the title of both poem and the book.\u00a0 Not only does the wholeness that is out there appear to be slightly beyond reach, but it has to be circled around anyway.<\/p>\n

Thus, the book seems to begin with a statement from the authorising consciousness of the book.\u00a0 But\u00a0 Phillips has always been one to dramatise the \u2018I\u2019 in his poems.\u00a0 Sometimes the poems seem to circle round that \u2018I\u2019, as in \u2018The Greatest Colours for the emptiest parts of the world\u2019: \u2018Sure, I used to say his name like a truth that, just\/ by saying it aloud, I could make it true, which makes no more sense than having called it sorrow,\u2019. By using the words \u2018say\u2019 and \u2018call\u2019, Phillips brings \u2018truth\u2019 onto the surface of the poems.\u00a0 That dramatizing movement is, I would suggest part of Phillips’ nature as a metaphysical poet.\u00a0 A metaphysics which not only explores the personal nature of truth, love, \u2026 cruelty, but shows how such notions are entwined with both the erotic and the nature around us.<\/p>\n

Phillips\u2019 previous books have always contained poems which are shot through with a very powerful attachment to the natural world.\u00a0 Often that world is a world of plants and Phillips is a wonderfully delicate writer about flowers, but not only flowers.\u00a0 Patience reoccurs in this book in the poem, \u2018Lowish hum, cool fuss\u2019 (what a brilliant title by the way!): \u2018Like hawks tipping, fluttering, over likely ruin -\/ how what looks to patience isn\u2019t patience\/ at all, more like hunger and instinct squaring\/ off before joining forces\u2019.\u00a0 Of course, this might just be riffing off Ted Hughes, and I\u2019d bet that Hughes is a poet that Phillips has read and re-read.\u00a0 In this poem, Phillips pulls that image of the hawk into a sense of innocence, which has its own perils, \u2018But why can\u2019t innocence\/ be instead a boat, slowly coming about, set free\/ by accident, beneath it the rocks against which\/ sturdier craft, I know, have shattered?\u2019<\/p>\n

There is, ultimately, a slight sense of Phillip\u2019s treading water with this book.\u00a0Reconnaissance\u00a0<\/em>doesn\u2019t quite have the plangent power of his Griffin prize nominated\u00a0Silverchest<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0In part, this book doesn\u2019t quite reach the level of that book\u2019s effortless melding of the metaphysical, the erotic and the natural world.\u00a0 After twelve books in twenty years that is, perhaps, only natural. As with all Phillip\u2019s poetry, however, his writing is ever haunting;\u00a0 poems to revisit\u00a0<\/a>for the way they engage the nature of being with an effortless, timeless elegance.
\n 
\nIan Pople<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carl Phillips has long been feted as a subtle and dexterous technician.\u00a0 In a\u00a0New Yorker\u00a0review, Dan Chiasson pushes Phillips forward as a \u2018candidate for the author of the most interesting contemporary English sentences\u2019.\u00a0 A Phillips poem may consist of anything between 10 and 15 lines, each part of one or two long sentences.\u00a0 Such sentences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nCarl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00 - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00 - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Carl Phillips has long been feted as a subtle and dexterous technician.\u00a0 In a\u00a0New Yorker\u00a0review, Dan Chiasson pushes Phillips forward as a \u2018candidate for the author of the most interesting contemporary English sentences\u2019.\u00a0 A Phillips poem may consist of anything between 10 and 15 lines, each part of one or two long sentences.\u00a0 Such sentences […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-31T05:42:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-23T13:10:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ian Pople\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ian Pople\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167\",\"name\":\"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00 - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-31T05:42:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-23T13:10:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9\",\"name\":\"Ian Pople\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Ian Pople\"},\"description\":\"Ian Pople's Spillway is published by Anstruther Press.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=21\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00 - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00 - The Manchester Review","og_description":"Carl Phillips has long been feted as a subtle and dexterous technician.\u00a0 In a\u00a0New Yorker\u00a0review, Dan Chiasson pushes Phillips forward as a \u2018candidate for the author of the most interesting contemporary English sentences\u2019.\u00a0 A Phillips poem may consist of anything between 10 and 15 lines, each part of one or two long sentences.\u00a0 Such sentences […]","og_url":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167","og_site_name":"The Manchester Review","article_published_time":"2015-12-31T05:42:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-01-23T13:10:55+00:00","author":"Ian Pople","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ian Pople","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167","url":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167","name":"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00 - The Manchester Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-12-31T05:42:31+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-23T13:10:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5167#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Carl Phillips, Reconnaisance (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux) $23.00"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website","url":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/","name":"The Manchester Review","description":"The Manchester Review","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9","name":"Ian Pople","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif","caption":"Ian Pople"},"description":"Ian Pople's Spillway is published by Anstruther Press.","url":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=21"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2PuXo-1ll","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5167"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5451,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167\/revisions\/5451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}