Photographs by John Chapman
Winner of the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice award for Autumn 2005.
With an unflinching and wry candour, Thorpe wrestles with love, sex and the disenchantments of dating past forty. Her poems confront the difficult emotions of longing, loss and unfulfilled hope, always with a musical accompaniment.
Thorpe's poetry is unmistakably contemporary, her crystal-clear lyricism akin to that of Billy Collins and her firm and funny grasp on the physicality of female sexuality comparable to Carol Ann Duffy. Thorpe seems to have a talent for divining and sourcing her own feelings and the resonances of the present moment, translating them into subtle aural tonalities. She has a rare gift for envisaging several strands of life's meaning coming together and encapsulating them in a single phrase. Perhaps the greatest thing about Lorna's poems is their simplicity and sincerity, yet the poetic quality of her work is, if anything, sharpened by this smooth, stylish flow of expression.
Born in Brighton, Lorna Thorpe is a fiction and feature writer, whose work has been published by Serpent's Tail, Guardian Weekend magazine and the New Writer. She started writing poetry just under two years ago, when she attended a series of poetry workshops organized by local literature organization THE SOUTH and led by Brendan Cleary. Cleary encouraged her to continue and has edited the pamphlet.
Adjudication from Poetry Book Society
"The pamphlet choice this quarter is Dancing To Motown, poems by Lorna Thorpe, a beautifully constructed pamphlet by Pighog.
“Lorna ambitiously uses either the construction or theme of Motown soul genre, as the underlying model for this collection. As such there is a blues like quality to the poems. Traditional poetic forms like the sonnets, as well as epiphany; intricate rhyme schemes and alliteration achieve the fine balance between lyricism and narrative monologue, needed to explore the celebratory and elegiac essence of love. Lorna creates brilliant insights through subtle observations, achieving sensual work, and an addictive delightful read, rooted in a specific time period. Like Motown songs, there is a deceptive simplicity, which belies the collection's complexity."
The selectors are Malika Booker and Martyn Crucefix.
