Space Odes by Richard Parker March ‘The bloody mess of individuals

‘The bloody mess of individuals – / plastic stuff outside an abandoned tent’

reminding us of what we lose by ceding ground to the officially sanctioned narrative

intimate narratives cling to the future through memory

The poems of this dazzling second collection are of contradictory impulses: of abundance and famine

Francis Scarfe from early to mid-20th century

Space Odes by Richard Parker March ‘The bloody mess of individualsRTA Parkers Space Odes is an entertainingly bonkers romp of constellation and collage, writing and re writing its entertainingly allusive way through intertextual space lampooning, deriding, despairing at and celebrating robots, the universe, love and sport (cricket, mostly) in a wonky poetics of anxiety and joy at the world we are thoroughly and catastrophically screwing up. No Catharsis. No bust through into the empyrean. No illumination. It ends