In love, bring myself Dominic Leonard presents a haunting sequence of sonnets with words found in the translations of the popular Mystery Plays of the 14th and 15th century. Leonard pulls out penetrating, primal tones, and crafts them into evocative and mysterious poems. ‘Having wandered / 4600 years’ love, bring myself lays out the timelessness of language and earthly desire.
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'I love the soulful and musical orbiting of subject in search of its fellow/beloved. It's like the questioning part of the Song of Solomon voiced by an unbitter
Beckett.'
- Vahni Capildeo (Venus as a Bear, Carcanet)
'These experimental sonnets take the language of Medieval drama and blow the archaic dust clean off – leaving us with poetry which is raw, tender, vulnerable and strange. Leonard’s pamphlet is as singular, mysterious, and trembling with life as a snake's egg. To quote from one of his own poems: ‘there is nothing else like it.'
- Rebecca Tamás (Witch, Penned in the Margins)
Dominic Leonard's poems, reviews and essays can be found in The Poetry Review, Poetry London, TLS, PN Review, Pain and elsewhere, and in 2019 he received an Eric Gregory Award. His pamphlet, Dirt, is available from Broken Sleep Books.
