AustLit

'Polyp, named after the coral's tentacular polyp, is Ashley Haywood's highly anticipated debut collection of poetry. Drawing upon paleologist and geologist Dorothy Hill's collected papers for inspiration, Polyp explores corals, fossils, seeds; tracing out the I of the poems through strata, deep-time, and the Anthropocene with urgency, compassion and the kind of anxiety that spurs action. This remarkable livre compose seeks the ineffable in the loops and flows of ecological and geological systems, as well as through its own linguistic formalities and experimentations. Polyp grows from itself like fractal shoots, then snips its feet to create new forms. A wild I slips between layers on the page, desirous of multiplicities, time-fullness and connection, looking back to ask, Who's there? What poem are you? Exquisitely rendered through fragmentation and recombination, Haywood's debut collection offers a vital and nuanced reinvigoration of ecopoetics, raising the questions for each of us, 'What have I done, what haven't I done?' (Publication summary)