Poetry, as RS Thomas once claimed, is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart. The poet's task is to find the effective middle ground; to perform that lyric trick whereby thought and emotion seem to effortlessly combine. Seek to provoke only feeling, and crude sentimentality ensues; indulge in the cerebral, and the poem might be interesting enough, but it will remain lifeless - a kind of versified intelligence. In Loop of Jade, Sarah Howe's debut collection, winner this week of this year's TS Eliot prize, the poet attempts to merge personal accounts of her dual Anglo-Chinese heritage with her scholar's penchant for the intellectually abstruse. The result is a book of poems that are as playfully and frustratingly recondite as they are memorable and unusually affecting.
Loop of Jade by Sarah Howe review – the winner of the TS Eliot prize | Books | The Guardian
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