Rightly or wrongly, I associate the author/s here with Olson studies. The most striking line, which I also felt was somewhat out of place
sharp bursts from the full throat
The surface shimmers with a selection of I would argue fragmentary appeals: archival work; place/landscape; visual images and sketches; concrete shaping; its protagonists (historical and contemporary); science and mathematics (“the language of the unseen relations of things” Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron); etc..
These qualities find a felt unity for me in the life of Lovelace.
There’s a startling quietness to the poetry here, and a sense of beginning again and again despite our mistakes. How good is the poetry? It’d definitely be out of place – if amusing – in less innovative work. And it carries itself energetically. It’d be foolish – ultimately a dishonest exercise – to assess its worth, in terms of the above, without studying Lovelace (or at least a serious interest in the meaning of her father for her): which I mean as definite praise for the collection.