‘The dog itself’ from The Dog of Memory was The Guardian’s poem of the week on Monday 3rd October, chosen by Carol Rumens. You can read her assessment, and an interesting debate in the comments section on The Guardian website
Sheepdogs are rarely treated as metaphorical beasts, and certainly not as bringers of poetic inspiration. In fact, I rather think that literary dogs, for all the instances of good and faithful service, are more likely to have malign than benign symbolic connotations. But the dog of Helen Farish’s new collection The Dog of Memory is no rough cynic but a bringer of gifts and delight. In a collection much concerned with memory as the retrieval of sense impressions, the sheepdog in this poem feels like a protective if excitable genius loci…
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