Listening In

In this original second collection, Lynley Edmeades turns her attention to ideas of sound, listening and speech. Listening In is full of the verbal play and linguistic experimentation that characterised her first collection, but it also shows the poet pushing the form into new territories. Her poems show, often sardonically, how language can be undermined: linguistic registers are rife with uncertainties, ambiguities and accidental comedy. She shuffles and reshuffles statements and texts, and assumes multiple perspectives with the skill of a ventriloquist. These poems probe political rhetoric and linguistic slippages with a sceptical eye, and highlight the role of listening -- or the errors of listening -- in everyday communication. Edmeades' poems are terrifically accomplished -- they show confidence and a sure, skilful handling of language, even when expressing tentative, slippery ideas and emotions. Her work is full of verbal play, celebration, pleasure and despair.

Featured in the 23 July 2019 New Zealand newsletter.
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