{"id":4968,"date":"2015-12-26T16:49:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T16:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=4968"},"modified":"2019-02-11T07:57:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T07:57:50","slug":"a-review-by-norman-ball-of-all-the-babble-of-the-souk-collected-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/a-review-by-norman-ball-of-all-the-babble-of-the-souk-collected-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"A Review by Norman Ball of All the Babble of the Souk, Collected Poems. Robin Ouzman Hislop."},"content":{"rendered":"


\nAll the Babble of the Souk
\nBy Robin Ouzman Hislop
\nAquillrelle, 2015
\n 
\nNorman Ball, writer, author of Between River and Rock: How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments <\/em>–
\nBefore I get to the book itself, I\u2019d like to offer up a confession. Robin and I have, over the years, engaged in some fascinating discussions on such far-flung topics as Big Bang contrarianism, the mystery of consciousness, theories of memes, multiverses, Popper falsifiability and vitalism, just to name a few; in short, the usual water cooler chatter. Or maybe not. Robin\u2019s a whole lot smarter than me. Nonetheless it\u2019s a lot of fun trying to keep up. If you\u2019ll forgive a mixed metaphor, we\u2019re odd ducks of a feather.
\n 
\nFor one thing, Hislop is not averse to the occasional Latinate or ism<\/em> getting tossed into a stanza. Of course poetical exploration of High Concept puts one at odds with the prevailing penchant for concrete image and tactile adhesives. There are many in poetry today who insist that, if you can\u2019t say something nice about a spatula, a garden hose or a lamppost, you have no business trafficking in periphrasis. Everything must be grounded in the real, they say\u2014as if such a thing as the real really<\/em> existed. If I may say, oh prevailing sentiment in poetry, get real.<\/em>
\n 
\nSo, perhaps All the Babble of the Souk<\/em> is not for everyone. But then, what of any value ever is? Poetry marches under a Big Spatula and we all can\u2019t be flipping fried eggs and hash. Besides, in the hands of a deftly abstract mind, abstraction is not exactly a kick in the head. Nor will it break the yokes and spoil your breakfast. What is a speculative poetic excursion, after all, but high imagination and eccentricity commiserating via language? Let the arbiters of bric a brac <\/em>catalog the quotidian like good flea marketeers. Such people are born to rummage about in the attic and log their heirlooms on eBay. Hislop doesn\u2019t trammel their kiosks. He has Big Thoughts to mull.
\n 
\nFresh off a personally intense eye-mind exploration , I found myself greatly predisposed to \u2018Maps\u2019, a four-piece series of poetic aphorisms that offers some dazzling insights into how we demarcate our space, time and existence, and especially how these elements are conveyed, if not even defined, by our senses:
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