Greg Thomas is an academic of concrete (&similar) poetry e.g. his publication Border Blurs: Concrete Poetry in England and Scotland – Liverpool University Press, 2019, and he is also a memorable writer of/in this genre e.g. the text being reviewed, and particulates also with Timglaset, 2022. I am trying to avoid too definitive a labelling of the poetry – though ‘concrete’ is clearly its key feature – but his work is innovative and wide-ranging, as with his other recent work Candle Poems with Poem Atlas, 2023. When I reviewed particulates soon after its release, I referred to the writing as ‘old-school’ concrete and was never reprimanded so I’m playing comfortably, I trust, in the same ball park.

This latest collection is in two sections, threshholds and the skin of the sky: poems in the Faroe Islands. The opening poems in the first section form a brief trio about ‘boundaries’, and in addition to the gentle pulse of their nuances, it is interesting how so many of the poems to follow will subvert this theme by working up to and past the boundaries of their individual pages. And this is emblematic of how the poems enact and search within, outside and beyond the words/language of their roots.

Or put another way, Thomas explores ‘suspended/certainties/between’, this in another poem where its presentation (so not as I have written) is freed from the logic of its statement, this another characteristic of the whole collection – logic and statement being my terms rather than quotes from Thomas’ texts.

And (here’s a thread then) a titled poem six proposals for new words presents a playful selection of that number which are both recognizable and wonderfully new. A named set five broch poems are presentations as varying fortresses – small and larger – of their precise words, and the visual significances are aspects of the concrete poetry tradition.

Text size, fade-outs, page fills: these are further explorations of how Thomas constructs the varieties of meaning and perception conveyed by words and phrases and actual things,

or, as Thomas puts it elsewhere

‘old things/newly disturbed’

In the second section, the poems continue to take on their disturbances and there are threads that appear as well as lyrical interludes and delightful structurings. Here is a delightful poem from the section,

‘the island is a flute

the first tunnel
is for your mouth’

threshholds is a collection I have been enjoying so much for the past few weeks since receiving, dipping in and out, and again today with my deep

dive for this review.

Do you see what I did? Old-school…

You can get threshholds at the excellent Timglaset here: https://www.timglaset.com/produktsida/greg-thomas-threshholds