“Bleb” by Sanjeev Sethi
One of the great positives for me when reading Sanjeev is the opportunity to increase my vocabulary. In each poem there is one or more words for which I need a dictionary. This is excellent because it puts the emphasis on meaning. This is especially true of “Bleb”, his new book out with Dreich. To me the poems deal with the separateness of people, of the reader and writer, the writer to the poems they write. Sanjeev calls these “wee poems” but they get larger with each reading. The first poem in the collection:
Speaks of the outside coming in. “Words cycle towards” him. He is “the doc on duty”. “the baby” is “the first draft” needs medical care. The creation of something outside himself that needs nurturing. This is one of Sanjeev’s major themes in the book. How poems become independent have a life of their own, but also deaths of their own too. The final poem:
Finishes with a sense of the positive “fresh urgencies”. He sees words as “empirical drills” to “decipher” the world and his relationship with it. I cannot recommend this work highly enough. He takes us back to the running track of the first poem. His poems are that “raw force” that “flow with fresh urgencies.”
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. At £3.00 it is a must read.
The Wombwell Rainbow 