I attended a reading of his new book, ‘Eely’, by Steve Ely, in Huddersfield, as part of Huddersfield Literature Festival.
How the hell am I going to describe this? I will try my utmost.
It is a book of poetry. It is not a poetry “collection”. It is not a bunch of poems that somebody wrote, and then put together. Every word in this book is concerted, and part of a single, coherent, dedicated work.
But you can dip in and out of it, and read the individually titled poems in isolation, should you want to.
I am a post-doctorally qualified scientist. Whenever a writer invokes scientific terms in their writing, I immediately want to know with what authenticity and accuracy they are doing it. Steve Ely has done his research, and you may take it that everything he says in this work that sounds scientific has the same rigour as an academic paper in a reputable journal. Steve Ely has dealt with his subject in that regard with more thoroughness than any other writer of poetry or fiction that I know of. I hope he has set a new standard.
This is a working class book. The experiences related are from working class characters who speak in working class vernacular. The breadth of vocabulary and the ingenuity of language in the whole work is broader than anything I can think of. Broader than Ted Hughes. Broader than T. S. Eliot.
I am struggling to describe such an unexpected, diverse, complex, and important object. I would say that it resembles ‘Dread Beat And Blood’ by Linton Kwesi Johnson, in the sense that it brings poetry to a set of subject matter that previously had been neglected. But it is much more detailed and thorough than any other poetic work I have previously read.
Parts of it will amaze and inspire you.
Parts of it will inform and engage you.
Parts of it will make you feel sick.
You need to read this book. If fewer than a hundred million people read this book, the Earth shall die.
Eeely
Steve Ely
Longbarrow Press
978-1-906175-48-1
184pp
GBP 14.99
iamhyperlexic 