POETRY SPOTLIGHT: 'Endless Summer' by Cath Kenneally
This week's poetry spotlight shines on Cath Kenneally's new poetry collection, The Southern Oscillation Index.
These poems reflect on travel, on staying at home, on the passing of time, and on our afflicted world. Both tough and gentle, nostalgic and sharply political, Kenneally's work is enlivened by flashes of gallows humour.
Post written by Maddy Sexton
And so we're back! Back to work, back to school, back to our fortnightly poetry posting here on the blog. Fitting, then, that our first feature poem for the year comes from a collection that's all about the ebbs and flows of our lives.
In his endorsement quote for the cover of Cath Kenneally's latest collection, Aidan Coleman describes the feelings that these poems evoke much more effectively than I ever could.
The big theme in Cath Kenneally's Southern Oscillation Index is being alive, and how to live: on the street, in the garden or the kitchen; in the mind.
(Read all about Aidan Coleman in previous Poetry Spotlights here and here).
At first glance, these poems are quiet, unassuming glimpses into a fairly ordinary life. There's travel, ageing, gardening, worrying about children – the general humdrum of life. They seem to be poems about ordinary people living ordinary lives – and to some extent, they are. But it's the way that these poems encapsulate the little oddities of our ordinary lives – watching chubby babies on a walk, meeting odd people on our trips to Europe or the corner shop – that pull you in.
Helen Eddy of ReadPlus once again puts it better than I could:
The poems beautifully and deftly describe places, but it is not the places themselves that draw you into Kenneally’s work, it is the snatches of life, the thoughts, and experiences that we recognise and share.
The poem of the week, 'Endless Summer', really highlights this wonderful style. It's both general and specific, describing a day which any of us have probably experienced over the years, yet it's so specific to one person's experience. For me, I think it's a reminder of how rich and unique our lives all are, even though we all have such similar experiences.
Endless Summer
