The Conversation

The meditative and lyrical third collection from Norgate (The Blue Den) explores memories in urban and rural landscapes. Descriptions of the natural world and of plants abound, which she writes in original and striking ways, as in “Dead Nettle in the Fann Street Wildlife Garden”: “It doesn’t sting and isn’t dead./ Instead, the dead nettle thinks itself,/ all over the grass, huddles with the cowslips,/ nudges in with the ox-eye daisies,/ and raises its estate of honeyed towers.” The title poem is one of several written in memory of poet Helen Dunmore, who died from cancer in 2017. In “The Conversation,” Norgate writes: “Now our words need a new measure of time,/ syllables for seconds, sonnets for minutes,/ epics for hours – this is our café society.” The loss is poignantly palpable in “The Summoner of Birds”: “Mostly, what I miss/ in these soon after days, is our talk,/ what I would have said, what you/ would have made of this.” The final poem opens on a lovely description of birds: “All day, the rook flies/ its shadow self over the half-moons/ of the tussock’s shade.” This elegiac collection pays wonderful attention to detail in language that frequently stands out for its beauty. (Nov.)