A Review of Sarah Cave and Rupert M. Loydell’s Impossible Songs
(Cornwall, UK: Analogue Flashback Books, 2017). Several months ago I reviewed Rupert M. Loydell’s twentieth collection of poetry, Dear Mary , which is a series of (far-ranging) meditations on the Virgin Mary and the circumstances of her miraculous conception. This follow-up, co-authored with Sarah Cave, is a series of “21 Annunciations,” using the same source-event, but presented in wholly different ways. There is no indication of which poems are penned by which poet, or if they are all collaborations. This is interesting to me, because I recently reviewed another book of poetry, Blue , by Wesley St. Jo and Rem é Grefalda that did not indicate which poet contributed where. The annunciations in Impossible Songs are refracted through a wide array of prisms. “A Polar Bear Annunciation of Self” is a first-person poem from the polar bear’s point of view, interdicted with narrative from Barry Lopez, the environmental/humanitarian writer. This poem is followed by another with an Arcti...