IN THE RIALTO

Most people are used to cement being delivered in ready-mix lorries, but it’s possible to mix your own. I spent a certain amount of time staring at cement mixers as a child, so, although one of our readers didn’t get the opening three lines, I got them entirely.

I’m usually wary of poems where the title runs straight into the first line, but this works, enlarging the immediacy of the ‘NOW’, the shock of the event. There’s such a lot going on in this poem (and here’s one of the whys of my liking poetry, its ability to layer so much together in short spaces).

This is an intense poem, much bigger than it looks, very neatly bracketed by its opening, ‘We haven’t spoken for miles’ and closing ‘It’s the talking I miss’. The whole content, the ‘where exactly is this relationship at?’

Rialto 84 is out! Subscribers’ copies arriving around now. Otherwise you can get it here.

I’ve been pre-occupied recently with the gap between my experience of poetry and what I perceive (partly through the unwillingness of readers to buy poetry) to be most people’s experience of it.

From our Vimeo Channel.

Lorraine Mariner – Poetry Dreams from The Rialto on Vimeo.