Here’s my first review, of Sue Wootton’s The Yield, which begins:
‘In attempting to describe The Yield and my response to it, I found myself referring again and again to the poem Lingua incognita, which is quoted on the back of the book and is, if I was pushed to name it, probably my favourite poem in the collection.
Some words dwell in the bone, as yet
unassembled…
Down in the bone the word-strands glimmer and ascend
often disordered, often in dreams,
bone-knowledge beating a path through the body to the throat
labouring to enter the alphabet.
…
and sometimes the only word to assemble in the throat is Yes
and sometimes the only word to assemble in the throat is No.’