Fools and mirrors

Plot

Norman Buller's second full collection confronts the universal prism that Fools and Mirrors us. Behind the prosodic elegance beats an earthy vitalism that tussles with a disembodied, spiritual distrust of the physical - a fascinating dynamic. 'Portraits by Francis Bacon' captures the tortured carnality of that artist's work, its misanthropic grotesquery provoking the poet's Gulliverish revulsion at the animal in us. But Buller's pessimism is more sceptical than devout, and when saying 'we dream a sense of purpose/ ...the rest is meat', a sense of salvation triumphs in the beauty of such phrasing.