Like Angela, I don't think you can evaluate a poem from a couple of lines. There are clues, false scents, irritations, things that will make sense only as the poem develops. Mostly, I have questions which the poem itself would resolve.
As Roddy's bothered to put them before us, that's already some sort of context, so I've spent longer looking at them than I normally would. Of course it's true that with a title, an editor, and the shape of the poem, one might pay more attention anyway, even if the name were unfamiliar.
1. Gents in a landscape hang above their lands.I couldn't work out what was going on here. Is it even set in the present? 'Gents' signals something, perhaps the relative social status of the narrator and those who hang. It's an aggressive, or at least assertive word, and that sort of confidence can be disarming... In what sense do they 'hang above their lands'? In portraits? Maybe the title suggests another group of people. 'Landscape hang' has John Bergerish implications, and I don't know who 'they' are, or whether we're talking paintings, aeroplanes, maps, land tenure, or what. (As well as the shape of the shadows on the ground, the word 'peninsulas' makes me think of Spain, then Malaya, Korea. Exploited soldiers, foreign wars.) Is the 'their' of 'their lands' the Gents? Is it the same as the 'their' of 'Their shadows'? Sloppy writing, or deliberate ambiguity? Ah, it all depends on your point of view. We may be looking at agricultural labourers, rather than rich men in aeroplanes. (Land tenure, then.) And the hanging may be not just pictures, but what the tenant would do to the landlord. The poet is putting us on notice that the poem will be politically engaged; he (I'm sure it's male) will aim to disrupt our cosy expectations of social order and syntax. I might read on, but warily, as I'm having a lot of difficulty following this. I'm not yet convinced the writer is in control of his pronouns.
Their long keen shadows trace peninsulas on fields.
2 My eyes have chased you over ponds, affinity, silver stations,
the mesh fences parting pastures, orange quells and orchards;
'My eyes have chased' sounds ingénue, overwrought. 'Chased' tries too hard, as if it's avoiding 'seen'. (Mine eyes have seen the glory....) Why the detachment from the eyes, as if they were independent? (Is stanza 2 going to start with 'My ears'?) Why the perfect tense? There's a lot of assonance here, as if the sounds are letting the meaning run away. Is the 'you' a person or an idea/l? The list mixes concrete and abstract in a way that makes sense of neither. What are 'silver stations'? Are they mines in Peru, or Seven Sisters in a heavy frost? Stations of the cross? And what about 'orange quells'? Is 'quells' a verb, or a (new to me) noun? The punctuation insists on the latter. (Questa o quella.) Orange. Are we perhaps in Northern Ireland, or Israel? Perhaps 'the metal fences parting pastures' etc are more than mere interruptions in watching the sun in a winter landscape from a train - perhaps this poem is going to explore political division, from a position of helplessness, where the eyes are all that can chase whatever is sought? (The beloved, peace.) Orchards have apples, and we all know what apples mean. But it doesn't appeal to me so far, as it's too mannered for my taste. This poem sounds female, or else from someone with roots in another culture. (I note Roddy says they are all UK poets.) It seems more like a religious poem than a political one, somehow.
3 Office-bound, the bored despot fingerpads her quilted hoursTexting on the train? Why is it made so complicated? It seems almost desperate to prove itself poetic. Faint echoes of Eliot, but every word is on speed. Like most of the other examples here, you'd never encounter these word sequences outside a poem. The 'despot' is held up as an object of contempt - perhaps I'm betraying my own prejudices here but I sense that 'quilted' and 'bobbins' are an atttempt to put her in her place. Sounds female, as no right on male would dare be so rude, or even so interested. And quite young.
testing for give; sostenuto clicks the chorus of her bobbins
4 A sluggish tide, a small surprising wind.Why is the wind 'surprising' if this is the coast? I'm unconvinced. And why is nothing happening? And is it ever going to?
A zigzag iron stairway still too hot to step on.
5 We've got lavender toilet paperThe conversational tone is mildly engaging, but there's a snobbery there I didn't warm to, as if we were being invited to laugh at the contrast between the chichi lavender paper and Worksop. (What's wrong with Worksop? Didcot? Penge?) I wonder if this is in the voice of some Hyacinth Bucket figure, and how much more the poem is going to be able to tell us beyond this. Sounds like a man taking the piss.
made in Worksop
6 We wake to a world invisibly tangled up in threads'We wake' instantly sets my teeth on edge. Sounds like exclusive, holiday stuff. 'Gypsy bells' - please! (Oh, no, you don't understand, there really were gypsy bells! Are you saying no-one can ever write about gypsy bells?) And why is it necessary to add 'a world invisibly tangled up in threads' to the sound? The poem has already given itself a lot to prove. 'Helium chitter-chatter' is slightly more interesting, as if the complacencies might possibly unravel, but there's a lot of helium about in poems these days. It might be part of a sequence.
of gypsy bells, to high-speed helium chitter-chatter
7 Impacted gold of the perished and the unborn,'Impacted gold' makes me think more of wisdom teeth with fillings. It's absurd hyperbole. Neo-metaphysical. A Catholic upbringing leads one to value each potential soul; bloke wants girl to value them too. Fetch the tissues. Perhaps it's going to be funny. That pun on 'suns'...
Wayfaring the globe of the body like tiny suns.
8 The feathers were taken from the front wheel of a juggernaut.'Painterly'. Passive voice focuses on the feathers, not the act of removing them - image rather than action. I like that word 'hinged'. I don't agree with Rob M about the order of the lines here. 'Juggernaut' could only work with the matter-of-factness of the first line, where it's a word everyone uses about big lorries. The second line cranks up the poetic rhetoric, and 'juggernaut' would be overladen after that. 'All the colours of a winter morning' is pushing its luck. There are enough poems about roadkill, aren't there? It would have to do something really special to earn its keep. But I do like 'hinged' so might read on.
All the colours of a winter morning, hinged with pink and bone.
9 Beneath her white wool pilch, the trial hair shirtUm - don't get this at all. I had to look up pilch (which is OK, I don't mind doing that) but it left me none the wiser in the context here. It places it elsewhere in time. I liked 'the trial hair shirt' but haven't a clue what 'malt-nets' might be, or why tears should rot them, or why she should make a hair shirt out of them. The woman is clearly upset about something, some sort of martyr, but her tears don't interest me enough yet. (Tears is a push-button that doesn't work for me.) This is the only one I noticed in iambic pentameter. That is tempting in itself, though it feels as if the writer is showing off. It's not Duhig is it? I'd read it if his name was at the bottom of the page.
she cut from malt-nets rotted with her tears.
10 What are you doing here, ghost, among these urns,I quite liked the contrast between the first line and the second. The ghost among urns could be a classical image, then - whoops- we are down in the refreshment tent. A direct address sets up expectations of something dramatic. But as Rob says, it's hard to see that this one isn't going to go in the usual direction. The language in the second line is flat - or simply unpretentious. Maybe that trick with the urn pulls it off. There's a sense of humour here. (Just think what the author of number 3 would have made of this material.) I reserve judgement until I read on. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Fanthorpe.
These film-wrapped sandwiches and help-yourself biscuits,
It all makes me wonder if sometimes beginnings are indeed overworked, and we read on despite the first line or two, and forgive them - no, understand them better - if the poem earns our respect. A poem has to establish its rhetorical level right at the outset, and we forget how artificial it is, once we're in it - or at least we accept its artificiality somehow. (And then there are poems whose job is to remind us of their artificiality...)
And the other thing it makes me wonder - unfair to lay this on the first two lines - is whether any but 10 were the product of more than leisure time. What are the imperatives?
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