Jo Shapcott's 'Of Mutability'

I first read Jo Shapcott in Ruth Padel's '50 Ways of Looking at a Poem' which I started dipping into a few months ago. I'd been eyeing up 'Of Mutability' since then, and when it won the Costa prize I knew I had to just bite the bullet and buy it.

I've raced through it, which probably isn't the way to get the most out of a poetry book, but it was very readable. None of the poems in there are too long, which I like. I always find that if I'm flipping through a poetry book, I skip the long ones. I like short to medium length poems. I like concise punchiness.

So does 'Of Mutability' deliver? Certainly the length of the poems fits my personal preferences, but I am in two minds about this collection. There's no denying that it's good. And there's no denying that Shapcott is a talented, well-honed poet with a very clear, recogniseable voice. But at the same time I feel that the collection lacked, in general, a bit of variety. Apart from two stand-out poems (about halfway through the collection), I remember it as kind of homogenised lump. The poems don't vary in length, tone, subject, even voice (3rd/1st person. I find that it's always difficult to decide which voice to use, and it's usually easier to just settle for 1st person, a strategy that Shapcott seems to have followed religiously. It's obviously a very personal, almost intimate collection, so 1st person suits it, but I did find the use of 1st person almost...(I hate to use the word, becuase it really is a good collection, but there's no other word to describe it concisely)....slightly monotonous). In short, it works as a collection. But for me, most of the poems don't stand up on their own.

Shapcott's style and use of language is something I really admire, however. I love how she plays with half-rhyme, alliteration, internal rhyme, and her mixing of specialist, kind of scientific vocabulary with everyday musings. My favourite poems have to be 'Somewhat Unravelled', about dementia, and 'Tea Death', about drowning in tea. For me these two stand out because they deal with serious, difficult subjects with a slightly lighter tone. 'Somewhat Unravelled' contains such lines as 'Don't you want to sell your nail-clippings/ online?' and 'you are a plump armchair...you are a sofa/ rumba', lines that are outwardly humourous but at the same time reveal unflinchingly the difficulty of aging and losing one's memory. 'Tea Death' finishes with a lovely stanza that mentions 'wobbling/ belly buttons'.

Verdict? On the whole not interesting, but enjoyable. One to dip into. I'll reread it, but slower next time, and in tandem with something a little more innovative and with a bit more bite.