Sunday Poem(s): If Your Matter Could Reform

As you can see from the picture, that’s not my title, it’s Robert Okaji’s. His was among the first poetry blogs I came across, and the best, so today I thought I’d give a shout out to those who don’t know it (he does, deservedly, have a lot of followers). I downloaded a copy of the collection If Your Matter Could Reform for the modest sum of €0.95, which makes the price of each word pretty good value for money. (Actually my wife downloaded the whole of Proust for €2.00, so that’s even less per word, but the thing is she gave up on it. Not saying it’s unreadable, mind, but…  well, a great choice for Desert Island Discs, put it that way).

Anyway, what I like about Robert’s poems is the precision of each word, the concision of the whole. Just one brief quote, from Nine Ways of Shaping the Moon:

Weave the wind into a song.
Rub its fabric over your skin.
For whom does it speak?

See? There’s a fuller review here if you want. Alternatively, you can just download the book. It’s the sort of poetry that you want to come back to, that makes you realise what poetry’s all about.