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A Frail Banner

by
November 2003, no. 256

beautiful, unfinished by M.T.C. Cronin

Salt, $21.95 pb, 116 pp

A Frail Banner

by
November 2003, no. 256

Like M.T.C. Cronin’s earlier collections, beautiful, unfinished is characterised by a mixture of mystical awe and formal restraint. The collection is subtitled PARABLE/SONG/CANTO/POEM’. As this suggests, it consists of a parable of sorts in verse, a sequence of songs, a set of cantos ‘minus melody’, and some poems. But in Cronin’s hands, these various forms seem based upon haiku. She writes sparely in short-lined stanzas, and she undercuts her own rhythms until it seems as if almost every poem might end in an ellipsis. 

Lisa Gorton reviews ‘beautiful, unfinished’ by M.T.C. Cronin

beautiful, unfinished

by M.T.C. Cronin

Salt, $21.95 pb, 116 pp

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