Mimi Khalvati

This is, rather unusually these days, a collection of fifty-six sonnets. Not quite a sonnet sequence, but not quite a random selection either: the collection opens with a small child on an aeroplane, flying trustfully into the unknown, and it ends with someone looking up into the sky and reflecting on the memories that are triggered by seeing vapour-trails. In between, the sonnets seem to be arranged roughly in chronological order of the moment in the poet's life they are talking about — Iran, Britain, school, family visits, old age. Not a memoir, but a kind of life-collage, perhaps?

Khalvati's treatment of the sonnet form is very individual, but it's hard to put a finger on quite what it is that she's doing differently. There is never the feeling that you are reading something constrained into a strict form, it's a surprise to see that each poem occupies the same number of lines on the page, and even more of a surprise to see that there are rhymes, exactly where they are supposed to be, but so understated that they become almost inaudible. Carpets, courtyards with fountains, and tree-blossom are brought in here and there, but perhaps more as a gentle tease than anything else. We're not really in West-Eastern divan country. The tightly-packed, crossword puzzle side of occidental sonnet form is certainly there: most of the poems trick you into starting to read one thing and then going back to read something quite different when you've got to the end. But it's a pleasant, civilised and often funny experience, not a tug of war with a poet's giant ego. Very enjoyable, a book I'll certainly come back to.… (mais)