Ebb & Flow
By Kim Taplin
ISBN 9781916333963
 
In Ebb & Flow, poems about weeding the garden, wearing hi-viz, trick-or-treating and the frustrations of motorway traffic are found alongside probing reflections on love, lifestyle and the quest for meaning. Kim Taplin’s poetry wrestles with our experiences of loss and grief, it challenges simplistic notions of faith and explores the existential threat of climate change.

These poems are readable and resonant, employing a refreshing variety of moods, styles and forms. Whilst some poems are humorous and ironic, others are poignant or plaintive; several are satirical, even polemical. Much of Kim Taplin’s poetry is written in narrative free verse, but there are also examples of more traditional poetic forms – blank verse, sonnet, terza rima, roundel, minute, tanka, mirror cinquain, hymn and awdl gywydd. Shape and allegorical prose poems are also included.

In Ebb & Flow, Kim Taplin questions the rigid dichotomies which shape much social, moral and religious discourse. Those who claim to possess the whole truth invariably distort it, often in ugly ways. The quest for truth is a navigation on tides that are never still – they ceaselessly ebb and flow.