Traum/A by JP Seabright

Traum/A is a collection of experimental poetry that explores an alphabet of trauma and living with it, taking different forms of poetry and visual work to push the limits of meaning and what a poet might share or not share. There’s some clever uses of form to talk about trauma (‘Trauma Porn [Inverted]’ might be my favourite because it so effectively makes its point) and a real range of formats on the page (for example, the typography of ‘Notice’, found poem ‘EMDR’, and the disintegrating power of central poem ‘there is a hole in the centre of everything’). The range and structure of the collection really reflects the many forms and experiences of trauma and the complexity of the brain, using disintegration and experiment to make visceral poetry, and each poem feels fresh and different within a collection that is very much a complete whole.