Measures of Weather by JR Carpenter review – deft verse that offers a guiding light

Weather often serves as the bleak subject of British small talk, or as the backdrop to more exciting literary drama. But in this blustery yet brilliant fourth collection from the Canadian-born, UK based poet JR Carpenter, weather becomes a fascinating central theme.

As Carpenter charts the chaos of twisted umbrellas and cancelled flights, it is her avalanche of abstract questions that strike with most force. “Where does the wind go?” “How does the mist steam?” “Are shadows considered weather?” If weather is everywhere, then must our “measure” of it change?

There is magic in her minute studies of ocean spray, and each “spoondrift” of snow that sugars the landscape like a spell. Yet she is not a poet with her head in the clouds – a darker truth emerges, measuring weather on an imperial scale:

The troubled history of the “Treaty 6 Territory” agreement, signed in 1876, between the Canadian crown and various First Nations, haunts this poet as a self-confessed “child of settlers”. Born near the early European settlement of Port Royal, Nova Scotia, the speaker begins to “measure” the world based on the ancient wisdom of “old woman bear”. As penance, perhaps, she commits to lifting “the linguistic cloak of colonialism” – a thought-provoking endeavour, starting with the imperial measurement system that fuelled trade across the British empire.

As Carpenter moves away from the cold instruments of science and conquest – the thermometer measuring temperature; the barometer measuring atmosphere – it is fascinating to see poetry become a pressure gauge of a different kind. A sentometer, if you like, that calculates human sentiment – how weather has long captured minds and hearts.

Some of these poems burn with rage towards colonialism; others query the patriarchal forces that weathered the scientific ambitions of women. Of Glass is a razor-sharp ode to Margaret Cavendish, the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society despite protests from the all-male fellows. Of a New Comet celebrates Caroline Herschel, the first woman to discover a comet and be paid for her work in astronomy. A startling range of stories takes us far beyond the cloudline, casting weather in a surprisingly celestial light.

Fragmentary and fleeting, like the wind they chase, these poems rarely stay still for long. After gazing upwards to the heavens, Carpenter glances forwards to the hellish weather patterns in a warming world. A change in temperature is typically “too small to be seen”; it flickers like a “flea in the dark”. Yet in Measures of Weather this flea glows fiercely: in a time of darkness, these poems offer a guiding light. In Of River, a deluge of dismal predictions are released as “rain like we haven’t seen for some time/ stains the parched fields green” and “pummelled plums fall” like “purple eggs from the sky” – a terrifying forecast soon offset by Carpenter’s playful approach.

I enjoyed the clever use of concrete poetry in Of Coast, which maps out a tape measure using hyphens, and the lively embrace of autocorrection in Of River Ice. Carpenter holds on to the experimental hallmark that defined her previous collections This Is a Picture of Wind and An Ocean of Static. Strangely, I did not tire of each poem being titled “Of” something ; the poet circles around each concept like a literary tourbillon, a whirlwind of wonder, promising a thrilling yet thought-provoking ride.

• Measures of Weather by JR Carpenter is published by Shearsman Books (£12.95)

Of Watches by JR Carpenter

time exceeds language.
face and hands are words
borrowed from the body.

watch, a word for vigilance.
pocket, a soft absence.
time, a frame.

in the present tense we wind up
using the same word as wind,
a general disturbance of air.

in the past, tense.
keyed up.
tightly wound.

a ticking time.
does not heal all.
we use the word to wound.