The best recent poetry – review roundup

Zonal by Don Paterson; The Martian’s Regress by JO Morgan; Come Down by Fiona Sampson; and Loss by David Harsent

Fans of Don Paterson’s lyric poetry will find his latest volume, Zonal (Faber, £14.99), something of a surprise. Often given to self-reinvention, Paterson has always kept musical panache at the forefront of his multi-award-winning verse, be it in the laddish smarts of Nil Nil, the paternal meditations of Landing Light, or the metaphysical reach of Rain. This new book is not only his most seemingly confessional, but also a stylistic departure. Taking its cues from the first season of the TV classic The Twilight Zone, its often surreal, long-lined narratives jump from funny to sad to profound with a suppleness somewhere between Frank O’Hara and CK Williams. “I am trying hard not to be that guy,” sighs the speaker in one poem, “and while I can fall prey to bitterness, I refuse to sound like some middle-aged incel addicted to Jordan Peterson videos.” The poet’s cutting wit and acute awareness aside, the best poems here are the reimagined character portraits that bookend the collection: “Lazarus”, in which self-improvement meets the Orphic contemplation of the void; and “Death”, in which a self-deceiving salesman tries to buy off the grim reaper.