New Review

My review of An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, edited by Wes Davis, from Harvard University Press is now online at Eyewear!

Moved by Cabbage

The Opposite of Cabbage
Rob Mackenzie
Salt Publishing, Cambridge, 2009

The biggest enemy of the poet is patience: having the patience to sit tight and wait for your voice to develop, wait for your style and craft to be fully absorbed inside you. Having the patience to send your work out into the world and wait for acceptance or, more usually rejection. Having the patience (and the wit) to know when your first collection is ready to go out there, having been polished to within an inch of its life, to face the slings and arrows of your poetry peers.

There are no such quibbles against The Opposite of Cabbage, by Rob Mackenzie. This collection is as finely kneaded as a well-risen loaf. The poems in it lean nicely against each other, setting a steady andante through the collection with the occasional two-step, just to keep us extra-vigilant. Reading it closely, as I have done over the last few days, with a pencil, reveals just how well the poems stack up.

Mackenzie does urban modernity in all its guises: not as the flâneur, the well-heeled insouciant gad-about town, but as a deeply concerned citizen from and of the world. Popular culture is absorbed and synthesised fully, coming out of the end of his pen in unexpected ways, such as in ‘Benediction.’ This poem conflates the old and the new by taking the age old procession of the Madonna and smothering it with our materialistic obsessions: the 'Gucci bikini, geologic surgery, and bottle-blonde wig'. The result is a heady mix, but not without its own comment on subjectivity: ‘Her eyelids shut, / open, and lava-hot tears steam towards the crowd.’ This is what happens when mass culture meets moving statues.

My favourite moments in The Opposite of Cabbage occur when Mackenzie manages to climb right inside what I can only think of as Cubism in poetry. This is when you get the impression that the moment you are reading - in the poem - is actually two or three viewpoints concurrently captured. ‘In the Last Few Seconds,’ Mackenzie’s commended poem from the National Poetry Competition 2005, is one example of this metaphysical imagining of gathered moments. There is the ‘smudge of tail-lights’, and the ‘spin round corners’, as a soul seems to let go and become apart from the wreckage scene that is about to unfold. The reality of a crash isn’t a ‘flashback, a potted bio’, as we’ve been led to believe. Instead it’s when ‘stars blister across the sunroof. / Cracks appear.’ Fractured reality reveals much more to us, especially when under the compression of form.

Another of these strange meldings of moments happens in ‘Shopping List’. Ostensibly a list of things to buy, it becomes a close-woven flit between these material objects and a fantasy world, as well as the real world. We are forced to decipher the signs as we read and work out the true position of the poem’s subject. And that is never fully revealed either. In scalpelling as close as Mackenzie does with language, we are left to make our own minds up, rather than corralled into the value judgments of the poet.

But to analyse this collection that closely is to deny the humour that glitters darkly just below the slick of this collection, binding it together. In poems such as ‘Scottish Sonnet Ending in American,’ Mackenzie amply demonstrates that you can be ‘one foot short of a rhythmic swing,’ and still kick a bit of life into one of the oldest forms, whilst cocking a slight snook at the establishment.

And there is the not-too-small matter of deeply felt compassion, especially in a poem like ‘White Noise,’ that navigates a taut thread between the materialistic outside world of the ‘FTSE trampolining the pound’ and the individual tragedy of ‘Frank’s baby’s breath […]/ like the cherry blossom […] raised briefly with every // loitering hope and passing bus.’ The lynch pin of this poem comes towards the end, in the line, ‘disappointment // and music are made possible only by love' - a line that I have to say breaks my heart. It does it in a sort of Tom Waits/Frank's Wild Years way, and that's probably as close as I dare go with analogies for now.

It’s because each of us cares about things such as these individual disasters, ultimately, that poets can make art such as there is in this collection. Patience allows poets like Mackenzie that full realisation on the page in texture of sound and language that in turn, can evoke the truth of compassion in all of us. For the full experience, I can only suggest that you try out Rob Mackenzie's debut collection, The Opposite of Cabbage, for yourself.

The Lady Doth Protest

Over at Indieoma, there's a week's worth of articles and views on the idea of protest, called 'Your Voice'. I've got a piece, Voicing the Truth on the difficulty of crafting a 'protest poem,' Sean has a piece, Vox Interruptus, on stammering; Karim looks at revolutionary literature while Ric investigates revolution, films and butterflies.

There is also a short story by Farryl and a rousing piece on why you should protest by Martin - and last but not least, how to influence people through protest by Jacki

You can post comments after the pieces - you needn't register, but do let people know who you are. Happy reading!

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On another note, a thoughtful review of Kairos is up at Liam Guilar's Lady Godiva & Me. Liam is English, of Irish descent, living in Australia. His poetry has lately appeared in The Shop & The Stinging Fly, for Irish readers who might just recognise his name.

Another Review

This time at Todd Swift's Eyewear, where I investigate the Oystercatcher pamphlet, by Rufo Quintavalle.

It's like waiting for a bus, you wait around long enough and a lorry-load of them come along!

Review Up

In the veritable literary & arts glut fest that is the brand new Horizon Review you will find a review of Duncan Wu's William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man... by me :)

Go check it out - there's fiction, poetry, reviews, art, theatre... and a translation of Prufrock into Piratese..!

Taking up the Review Cudgels

Emerging Writer has picked up on a New York Times article that highlights the seven most overused words that reviewers employ when writing reviews. I've seen a similar vein taken up on Poets On Fire forums recently too.

The problem, I guess, might lie with the time that you have between reading the book/journal/zine etc. and having to write and then deliver the finished article to whichever editor is taking it.

It's a topic fraught with its own rules and regulations and areas of writing negotiation that the reviewer must come through. Last year (at QUB), we had Ian Sansom (he of the Guardian reviews) come talk to us. Not so much about how to write a review, more how not to write a review. Some of it makes perfect sense.

There's no substitute for knowing what you're talking about. If it's the poet's third collection, you should, in all honesty, be familiar with their work. If not, go get familiar with the work. Perhaps this is what leads to reviews that employ such overused words as the ones listed in the NYT review of reviewing; the time constraint of having to make your deadlines as you whizz through the tenth book in that bursting jiffy bagful that you've agreed to review.

If you're going to diss a writer's work, at least make it humorous. Ian used Randall Jarrell's prolific output as a good example. But the thing about Jarrell's reviews is that they were good; in fact some would argue that they were far better than his poetry output. Which makes me wonder whether reviewing is such an art, in and of itself, that it impinges on the other work of the writer - whether they are involved in poetry or prose.

I am reminded of Rob MacKenzie's recent post, where he asked what people are looking for in reviews. I know that this pertains to poetry reviews in particular; prose reviews are more telling what the book is about and whether it is well written or not; poetry reviews have to look at the techniques involved and whether they contribute to the sense of the collection. Form informing content, and all that, which makes poetry reviewing far more specialised than the general all purpose reviews.

Reviewing is an art: I think that a reviewer should be aiming to convey their passion and knowledge about the book they have read to the reader. It's an act of persuasion as well as conveyance; a gentle balancing act of accessibility and refined language. It is, after all, only an opinion. But it should be the very best opinion for the reader to trust your words.

Having said all that, there's one book that I would really recommend for the would be reviewer: How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, by Pierre Bayard. Read it and smile with amusement at how much we know about books that we've never opened... I am thinking of Joyce now, for some reason...

Review of Downside Up

Downside Up
Anne Connolly
Calder Wood Press
£4.50

A curious thing happens when you read the poetry of someone who has lived in exile from their birth country for a while. You are forced to face the issues that you might have dodged in your own work; issues of religion or politics, as well as people and places that evoke strong connections to your own way of thinking.

Anne Connolly’s accomplished chapbook, Downside Up, faces these issues implacably; affording us a good hard stare at life as it has been lived in Ulster as well as in Ireland too. Poems such as ‘The Price of Petrol,’ take us back to the 70s, to a time of petrol shortages and sectarian preferential treatment. But this poem cannily reflects the present as well: ‘ “How’re ye Wullie?” / “Disappointed.” ’ It’s how little words like ‘Disappointed’ can wholly capture the resigned feeling of that time. All one could do was to quietly endure, when you were refused petrol at the station in favour of someone like ‘John Citizen,’ who

marches,
holds a banner in his hand
and on bonfire night
his boys laugh
as they burn
a well-stuffed pope.

Connolly leaves it as it is: the actions of the small (minded) community speak for themselves.

But her poems go far outside the hold of the near-polemic as well. There’s a strong lyrical touch about her work that reminds me of John Hewitt, in the use of townland names in a poem like ‘Sky Road;’ ‘Derrygimlagh bog,’ ‘the tail of Clifden bay. Connolly easily straddles the border in Ireland, drawing out the essentials of all myths and legends, whether it is a recent tale, such as the landing of a Vickers Bomber in a western Irish bog, in ‘Sky Road,’ or ‘the ancient tumulus of Newgrange…her belly pregnant with the dead,’ in ‘Solstice.’ In this latter poem, Connolly imagines ‘Kings lie at Newgrange waiting… long[ing] for luminescence, / the solar triumph.’ She catches completely the significant essence of Newgrange, without resorting to over worn clichés, bringing it shining into the modern era.

I admit that poems like ‘Aran’ lie close to my own interests and interpretations. In this poem Connolly uses the interwoven lines to underscore the intricacy of the stitches described, as well as their ascribed meanings. I remember my mother explaining the meaning of the stitches that go into making up an Aran pattern; each islander family had its own specific set of stitches used, and these explanations are deftly ‘knitted’ together in this poem.

I think one of the reasons why I’ve responded to Anne Connolly’s work so deeply, is because I find strong echoes of my own themes and meanings. In Anne’s ‘Reflections,’ I see Heaney’s ‘Peeling Potatoes,’ one of the Glanmore Sonnets he wrote in memory of his mother; which in turn sparked off my own ‘Roosters.’ In Anne’s ‘Reflection,’ her mother ‘peel[s] potatoes / elbows leaning on the sink edge.’ In that sparse economy we have a woman getting on with the everyday chores that must be done; her ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph’ the refrain of many a woman in pain. The life before is succinctly captured as, ‘Her dancing days lay / at the bottom of the drawer,’ inverting the old-fashioned trousseau drawer as something that holds memories of a former life, rather than a future.

Connolly’s work is deservedly garnering attention in Scotland, where she resides now, but I would hope for a wider audience for her pamphlet, Downside Up, in Northern Ireland, and indeed across the hazy border into the Republic. I hope to see more of her work soon. Visit Calder Wood Press for this and many more reasonably priced poetry pamphlets

How not to do NaPo

Oh dear: I've stalled on NaPo around about 17 poems in. Not because I've nothing to write about, but because I suddenly realised that I had a lot of work to do on the pieces that I need to submit for the end of this semester. No-one said it was going to be easy!

NaPo hasn't been a waste of time though: I've written 17 poems, which is 17 more than I had, and I can use about six or so for the major submission. They tie in nicely with the (hopefully)emerging theme of time and memory, so nothing wasted - ever.

I've three assigments on the go: one a set of ten poems about 19thc Victorian attitudes towards sex; a set of twenty as yet unrelated poems (but I'm working on that you can hear the thumping and banging from where you are, I bet) as well as 2000 words of commentary about process, development, themes etc. and finally a review/critique of a poetry collection or collection. That last one sounds simple enough, but I'm having difficulty in sourcing previous collections of the writer whose book I'd like to review for this assignment. I'd like to be able to give a very rounded review and that means researching the previous three... odds bodkins!

A tale of Two Reviews

I forgot to post the link last week to a review I wrote for Eyewear about Meryl Pugh's pamphlet Relinquish and Patrick Williamson's Prussia Cove.

This week I find the poetry pundits have got their own back on me - only joking! There's a very considered review of Kairos as well as Fred Johnstone's latest poetry collection, The Oracle Room.

Did you know that Doghouse have very little stock left of Kairos... ?