HEATHEN ANTHEMS, poetry by Estill Pollock
Publication Date: December 15, 2024
Paperback, 108 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-85-1
Two things characterize Estill Pollock’s poetry: thematically, he seemingly is interested in everything, and nothing escapes his observation; while stylistically, he is equally at home in free and formal verse, exhibiting a subtle mastery of both. This once again is evident in his most recent collection Heathen Anthems, the title evoking praisesong for the profane world that embodies the sacred. Parsed into three sections, the first is a “Hall of Mirrors” reflecting his vast catalogue of concerns, ranging from his long-ago childhood in Kentucky (“I wanted to return to the deep woods, / quiet places and paths a wild boy took”) across the landscape – literal and literary – of his adopted England and the wider realms of history and culture, past and contemporary worlds intermingled. These themes continue into the middle section “The Discipline of Clouds,” in which the discipline takes the form of ABABCC sestinas that do not so much impose order as expose it, scrying a preexisting state of being. In the closing section “The Natural Order” his focus tightens, opening with poems sketching vivid portraits of everyday people all caught in “The Undertow” of life, then a persona poem of seductive “Sirens,” a “Creole Diary” conjuring an antebellum Louisiana, finally ending in a meditation on “Local Spirits” – “This is our inheritance, once / the oldest season is upon us…. // The heartbeat slows to winter’s pace, / the names our shadows memorised / before we came.”
Praise for Estill Pollock & Heathen Anthems
If the overriding task of poetry is the ability of a poem to shift slightly on every reading—the beauty of rhythm, the authority and weight given to language and the way the words slide off the tongue—then Estill Pollock has achieved this. It is quality writing.
—Poetry Book Society Bulletin
Reading Heathen Anthems, I find myself thinking: What is poetry, if not language in its finer tunings? Estill Pollock is a virtuoso. In a world out of tune with itself and “indifferent to our preferences,” he is writing poems that can and will, if we let them, help us carry on with our lives with our temperament and sanity intact. Heathen Anthems is a book to keep close, a book to return to and return to.
—William Slaughter, editor of Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics, author of Untold Stories & The Politics of My Heart
Master of the telling image.
—The Journal (formally, Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry)
About the Author
Estill Pollock’s publications include Constructing the Human (Poetry Salzburg) and the book cycle Relic Environments Trilogy (Cinnamon Press, Wales). His recent poetry collections, Entropy, Time Signatures, and Ark are published by Broadstone Books. He lives in Norfolk, England.
Publication Date: December 15, 2024
Paperback, 108 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-85-1
Two things characterize Estill Pollock’s poetry: thematically, he seemingly is interested in everything, and nothing escapes his observation; while stylistically, he is equally at home in free and formal verse, exhibiting a subtle mastery of both. This once again is evident in his most recent collection Heathen Anthems, the title evoking praisesong for the profane world that embodies the sacred. Parsed into three sections, the first is a “Hall of Mirrors” reflecting his vast catalogue of concerns, ranging from his long-ago childhood in Kentucky (“I wanted to return to the deep woods, / quiet places and paths a wild boy took”) across the landscape – literal and literary – of his adopted England and the wider realms of history and culture, past and contemporary worlds intermingled. These themes continue into the middle section “The Discipline of Clouds,” in which the discipline takes the form of ABABCC sestinas that do not so much impose order as expose it, scrying a preexisting state of being. In the closing section “The Natural Order” his focus tightens, opening with poems sketching vivid portraits of everyday people all caught in “The Undertow” of life, then a persona poem of seductive “Sirens,” a “Creole Diary” conjuring an antebellum Louisiana, finally ending in a meditation on “Local Spirits” – “This is our inheritance, once / the oldest season is upon us…. // The heartbeat slows to winter’s pace, / the names our shadows memorised / before we came.”
Praise for Estill Pollock & Heathen Anthems
If the overriding task of poetry is the ability of a poem to shift slightly on every reading—the beauty of rhythm, the authority and weight given to language and the way the words slide off the tongue—then Estill Pollock has achieved this. It is quality writing.
—Poetry Book Society Bulletin
Reading Heathen Anthems, I find myself thinking: What is poetry, if not language in its finer tunings? Estill Pollock is a virtuoso. In a world out of tune with itself and “indifferent to our preferences,” he is writing poems that can and will, if we let them, help us carry on with our lives with our temperament and sanity intact. Heathen Anthems is a book to keep close, a book to return to and return to.
—William Slaughter, editor of Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics, author of Untold Stories & The Politics of My Heart
Master of the telling image.
—The Journal (formally, Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry)
About the Author
Estill Pollock’s publications include Constructing the Human (Poetry Salzburg) and the book cycle Relic Environments Trilogy (Cinnamon Press, Wales). His recent poetry collections, Entropy, Time Signatures, and Ark are published by Broadstone Books. He lives in Norfolk, England.
Publication Date: December 15, 2024
Paperback, 108 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-85-1
Two things characterize Estill Pollock’s poetry: thematically, he seemingly is interested in everything, and nothing escapes his observation; while stylistically, he is equally at home in free and formal verse, exhibiting a subtle mastery of both. This once again is evident in his most recent collection Heathen Anthems, the title evoking praisesong for the profane world that embodies the sacred. Parsed into three sections, the first is a “Hall of Mirrors” reflecting his vast catalogue of concerns, ranging from his long-ago childhood in Kentucky (“I wanted to return to the deep woods, / quiet places and paths a wild boy took”) across the landscape – literal and literary – of his adopted England and the wider realms of history and culture, past and contemporary worlds intermingled. These themes continue into the middle section “The Discipline of Clouds,” in which the discipline takes the form of ABABCC sestinas that do not so much impose order as expose it, scrying a preexisting state of being. In the closing section “The Natural Order” his focus tightens, opening with poems sketching vivid portraits of everyday people all caught in “The Undertow” of life, then a persona poem of seductive “Sirens,” a “Creole Diary” conjuring an antebellum Louisiana, finally ending in a meditation on “Local Spirits” – “This is our inheritance, once / the oldest season is upon us…. // The heartbeat slows to winter’s pace, / the names our shadows memorised / before we came.”
Praise for Estill Pollock & Heathen Anthems
If the overriding task of poetry is the ability of a poem to shift slightly on every reading—the beauty of rhythm, the authority and weight given to language and the way the words slide off the tongue—then Estill Pollock has achieved this. It is quality writing.
—Poetry Book Society Bulletin
Reading Heathen Anthems, I find myself thinking: What is poetry, if not language in its finer tunings? Estill Pollock is a virtuoso. In a world out of tune with itself and “indifferent to our preferences,” he is writing poems that can and will, if we let them, help us carry on with our lives with our temperament and sanity intact. Heathen Anthems is a book to keep close, a book to return to and return to.
—William Slaughter, editor of Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics, author of Untold Stories & The Politics of My Heart
Master of the telling image.
—The Journal (formally, Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry)
About the Author
Estill Pollock’s publications include Constructing the Human (Poetry Salzburg) and the book cycle Relic Environments Trilogy (Cinnamon Press, Wales). His recent poetry collections, Entropy, Time Signatures, and Ark are published by Broadstone Books. He lives in Norfolk, England.