Cambridge Literary Review

Review: Cambridge Literary Review

Last year’s interminable anniversary celebrations were met with some cynicism upon the pages of this newspaper, and I remember my silent agreement. Dazed by the vertigo of their own prestige, the University went about whipping up money and publicity for what seemed like 800 years. Out of the swirling vortex of profit, however, comes the Cambridge Literary Review, a rather recondite volume of Cambridge’s new poetry, prose and criticism, established this autumn after the ‘…realisation that this town is awash with great writers but sorely lacking in creative fora.’ Thus, this intimidatingly generous 250 page publication, which does indeed accommodate a plethora of writing if under a somewhat particularised definition of greatness.

An emphasis upon formal innovation and what many would be tempted to label ‘difficulty’ underlies much of the verse collected in the opening 70 pages, resulting in a reading experience which moves us perhaps cerebrally before emotionally. With the exception of an excerpt from John Wilkinson’s ‘The Swing’, we wait some ten pages for the emergence of a first person pronoun, and when one appears it is within the rather apt question ‘Did you know I wrote an honors thesis | at Ohio State on Isherwood?’ 

And yet the perceived academese of the material is never self-satisfied and often yields up moments of humour and of poignancy. Ian Patterson’s poem ’60 Windows’ presents a perfect case in point, compressing ‘phrases taken from page sixty of sixty novels’ into a sequence of tercets that contains a similar intertextuality of emotion and perspective. Equally welcome are the Feature: On Cambridge Poetry and Essays section, where wider, more contextual discussions are offset by exercises in Cambridge’s trademark ‘practical criticism’ which provide lucid, accessible readings of the kind of complex poetry endorsed by the CLR. But should these explanatory sections actually preceed the prose and poetry, we might be better prepared to meet them on their own demanding terms. Though the general quality and precision of its content is difficult to dispute, whether the CLR will effect more than an interested minority seems like another question entirely. 

Originally published in Varsity