High expectations met and developed. My first from Alexander which inherits for him the convoluted, geometric knot-poetry we see in the convoluted and reductive line of JH Prynne, early WSG, certain notes of Dylan Thomas, Oli Hazzard, and probably GMH. I can see the Lamantia influence heavy here but this work is something else. I really struggle to recall a poet so volcanic, so serpentine.
But with all this power, Alexander's magmic undertow, Refractive Africa feels honed, a white hot core. It doesn't explode but unfolds as the Congo river (untied knot? Speak to JD). This really isn't one I expect to be popular but it has the sense of a crucial development to me, possesses something contemporary poetry in the UK lacks at the moment. Shamanic.

So it's an explicitly postcolonial text. I'm curious about the place of anger. WA doesn't spare scorn for the European nations involved in the colonization of Africa but I couldn't describe his expression as rage. Unless a volcano rages.

as for Europe
it equates suffering with destiny
& so
suffering for them remains holiness
& according to this calculus
the Congolese are holy

As I was reading I copied down lines on the page they were written, rather than annotating per tradition. Was affirming. I went for lines specifically regarding what WA considers his poetry is, what refraction means, what dreams and fire can be.

I call it boldness
I call it extended verbal drawl
where resurrection exists as raw superlatives & plurals
like a serpent that vomits up gold

cross pollination by cacophony

This is one I've been meaning to pick up since it came out. Was annoyed that goodreads didn't have the prettier UK cover so have added it. He moves me I want to write on him and the others.

seducing reality by inflammatory crystal
by phonemes spun from eclipse & fire
as if you counted sapphires in your sleep