KELVIN CORCORAN: HOTEL SHADOW: SHEARSMAN BOOKS: 2010

KELVIN CORCORAN: HOTEL SHADOW: SHEARSMAN BOOKS: 2010

 Kelvin Corcoran is possessed of several preoccupations in his new collection Hotel Shadow. He's clearly a fan of Ezra Pound, mostly he attempts Poundian effects, assembling arcane knowledge of ancient Greek civilisation or poems just loosely imitating and/or praising Pound.

 It seemed to me that Corcoran is a writer with nothing to say, witless, styless with no really original style or content. The Greek stuff (Corcoran namedrops Greek thinkers and poets as if merely repeating the names Pythagoras, Socrates, Hesiod actually impresses us that Corcoran knows their thoughts or books. Why does he do this? His strategy is predictable, vain and meaningless.) is very tedious indeed and has been done better by a plethora of orthodox scholars.

Furthermore, it never seems that anything happens to Corcoran the man. Does he fall in love, feel bitter ennui or even enjoy a good meal? Is he connected at all to the lives of others? There's never a point where Corcoran's poems say anything at all about his own life, but the writer probably wants to hide behind his own verbose ravings and his execrable, meaningless ramblings about the ancient Greeks or Ezra Pound.

 I'm unsure what Corcoran intends us to take from this collection but its not a collection anyone but the author could like. If Corcoran intends to please himself then he's done a good job. He's written a lot of collections already and should know better by now or has not been told: he is not a writer or any kind but let's see more of his work so that it can be consigned to the rubbish heap of history.

 Paul Murphy

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