Friday 16 May 2014

Cosmic Disco

Cosmic Disco
Grace Nichols
London, Francis Lincoln, 2013, 79p

I am a huge fan of everything Grace Nichols does. Her poetry is full of imagery that seeps into your subconscious and roots itself there in your dreams. This collection has a variety of themes, focusing on space and the natural world.

Nichols is an observational poet, finding beauty in the world and describing it through simple language and vivid images. She pinpoints details in ways you never thought about before and makes them seem so obvious; for example, her poem Sky Artist looks at the clouds and imagines who is moulding them into shapes.

Elsewhere, she personifies the seasons as if they were people, calling them Lady Winter and Miss Spring. She uses rhythm and rhyme in some, where others are left less structure. Some are short, and some are long, but all bring to mind vibrant images of the world around us.

My only slight issue with Cosmic Disco is the cover. Within the pages are black and white illustraations from Alice Wright, which perfectly match the corresponding poems and add to the power of the imagery. But I think the cover is a little childish, and might put some teenage readers off opening up the book and discovering the amazing writing within.

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