Bloodshot Monochrome

like the insight that I see the world through a red eye where blood and heart mean more than black and white.

Agbabi writes using both traditional and slightly more unusual forms, but her themes are undeniably of its time and place in modern day London. Agbabi writes about a number of different themes including racism, abuse and crime, as well as the role of art in today's world, from poetry to popular music.

The collection is split into 5 sections and I found some of these sections worked better for me than others. Mainly I liked the very first section ‘Shots' and the very last ‘Vicious Circle', that both book end the slightly more muddling middle (imo).

‘Shots' is made up of several fairly short and snappy poems, my favourites of which were ‘Seeing Red' (quoted above), a poem that introduces an important idea for the whole collection about colour and its meanings, and ‘Foreign Exchange', which compares colour and race with the feeling of shame and anger encountered when missing a linguistic translation.

‘Vicious Circle', at the end of the collection, is a single, narrative poem in long form. The dark story itself, one of deception, betrayal and a murder plot, and certain lines gave me chills.

In the middle sections, ‘Problem Pages' was an amusing idea (famous historical literary figures send in their questions and problems to literary agony aunt Patience who offers her advice) but became fairly repetitive after the first couple.

I really liked the sharp and visceral energy from this collection as a whole, even though some poems did not hit their mark.