Entropy - Poetry by Estill Pollock

Publication Date: August 15, 2021

Paperback, 88 pages

ISBN: 978-1-937968-92-2

We are pleased to announce that Small Press Distribution named Estill Pollock’s Entropy as a Recommended title!

Entropy is a term most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty, and by one sociological definition is “the natural decay of structure (such as law, organization, and convention) in a social system.” It might well be said, then, that we are living in an age of entropy, and who better than a poet to address this state, since poets both before and since Yeats have long documented things falling apart, centers no longer holding. Estill Pollock’s new poetry collection by this title (his first to be published in the US) is a worthy addition to the poetry of entropy, and he wastes no time getting to it: his opening lines, “Asides to Walt Whitman…”, are full of images of war and pestilence, “the stink of babies three days dead / In Sudan, the boy staring back at the camera / His belly like a poisoned pup’s.” Thus from the outset we encounter poems that are both steeped in literary tradition (where Byron and Bob Dylan appear back to back) and passionately responsive to current events and human tragedy. And it is the former, the literary mastery, that keeps the latter from overwhelming us and making this a grim undertaking. Rather, it is a dazzling excursion into the delights of language, by a poet equally adept at description (as in the poignant “Visitor Hours” watching an old friend descending into dementia) and at invention (see “Strata”, a modern myth of a “secret within secret”, of an alien ship discovered beneath an archeological dig, “its hull a silk persuasion of stars / and strategies cut from deeper dark.”) In his poetry, Pollock confronts the chaos of entropy and creates order out of the fragments of a broken world – at least for a time, however long it may last. Near the end, in the appropriately titled ‘What no longer holds’ he concedes “I could not outrun the patience of graves // I have borrowed your heartbeat to tell you this.”

Praise for Estill Pollock & Entropy

Estill Pollock’s poetry collection Entropy by turns bears witness to the disenfranchisement of people and places, and testifies to the resiliency of the human spirit. Gritty scenes, often with a dystopic aura, are limned with realistic imagery of cinematographic vividness. We encounter culturally diverse characters and situations, keenly observed with an uncommon mix of empathy and asperity. In Entropy, we find a visionary collection of stark and unflinching reflections that we need for these times.

— Alexander Pepple, Editor, Able Muse

Estill Pollock’s beguiling exploration of the state of entropy has a refreshingly wide-eyed focus that digs deep into the matter of the world. He draws the reader into bubbles of demonic and aggressive behaviour, which seemingly have no borders. They appear as a continuum with science and religion as mere boundary conditions. There is light within the darkness, through attention to the outcast, émigré, the contrary spirit, and the desire to return home, as measurable entities. Beneath this, there is also the certainty in the eternal present, the elements and making of human life as perfection.

— David Caddy, Editor, Tears in the Fence (UK)

Estill Pollock’s first pamphlet selection of poems, Metaphysical Graffiti, was published in England. This was followed by a principal collection, Constructing the Human (Poetry Salzburg), which was later developed into the book cycle, Blackwater Quartet. Between 2005 and 2011, in collaboration with Cinnamon Press in Wales, he published a second major book cycle, Relic Environments Trilogy. Entropy is his first poetry collection to be published in the United States. A native of Kentucky, he has lived in England for forty years.