The poems of Mackerel Salad lure the reader into a series of disorientating situations which explore unreliable maps, being lost, trying to hide, and the nature of exploration itself.
We travel through space, across seas, into a medieval medina, inside a disquieting hostel kitchen in outback Australia, and round and round and round a convoluted traffic junction in Brighton. All the while, the world won’t stop moving, routine and ritual cannot be relied upon, even names are wearing out, and today is the last day of the salad.
‘Ben Rogers’ poems chronicle those passing moments which are made significant for having been noticed. Like another poet of the passing moment, Elizabeth Bishop, Rogers is always precise, ensuring that his readers see exactly what needs to be seen. His keen eye is trained on the ordinary – a teaspoon, a houseplant – objects which may not seem attractive enough in themselves to warrant a poem, but become so in Rogers’ generous and expansive scope. […] The poems in Mackerel Salad present a stand against indifference in a world that presents us with indifference. Rogers shows us the world we thought we knew, which, when we weren’t looking, somehow became a little less familiar.’ — Tamar Yoseloff in her introduction to the book
