Angela Graham demonstrates that the language of documentary is her bread and butter in this sensitive and assured riff on photopoetry from Culture and Democracy Press. Across the collection, Graham positions poetry as a form of creative record-keeping as she seeks to sit unflinchingly with global conflict.
The first section, titled ‘Soldiers and Civilians’, features poems responding to contemporary war photography ranging from genocide in Gaza to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here, Graham stretches her ekphrastic muscles, producing poems which are rich with restraint and physical presence. Rather than grand moral statements, she opts for powerfully understated description, as she responds, for example, to a photograph of a deceased soldier:
‘patches of camouflage
emerging like moss
in a parody of Spring’ (‘Weather’)
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