I wrote the following review in 1997, about an unpublished collection I'd assembled then. I wrote it to encourage a change of direction in my writing. Several of the poems got into "Moving Parts" (whose poems, on average are 11 years old). Of course, so much has changed since then ...
A review of "Misreading the Signs" by Tim Love
To entitle a collection "Misreading the Signs" is to tempt fate. If the poet misreads, what chance has the critic? And what are critics to make of being told that they
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wind up their gramophones for icing cakes, lift doors off their hinges to sleigh through slush, ("Re-evaluation") |
There are many signs and images in these poems that could easily be misread. Perhaps because it's been put together over many years, the collection (as well as some individual poems) lacks coherence. There are sonnets and haiku, as well as free form pieces, but in the main traditional forms are used ironically. Poems range from the image-free "Trying Again" to poems like "Giraffe" that use imagery at the expense of sense, symptomatic of a more general conflict between feeling and intellect that is not always well resolved. There's a wide range of subject matter too - love poems, poems about family life, comedy, the statutory re-interpretation of greek myth, art, politics - all dominated by a pre-occupation with language (its history and development).
The poems start well, but often falter or become suddenly obscure soon after the start, as if he's trying to
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mutilate language to see how it works, if it can still escape your maze. ("Romance") |
Nevertheless, many of the poems pull themselves together and end strongly. "The Fall" begins with a comment on the development of languages, then we realise that an englishman's intellectualising the loss of his american lover. The conclusion tidily brings together differences between the two cultures and languages
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And because it's autumn, London leaves fall yellow as cabs. As you fall asleep, a fire engine that used to hee-haw like a seaside donkey goes wow wow wow. |
In "Estuary" a river's used to represent a life, the passage of time going upstream
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The tide takes up the challenge of the sea's grief, narrows into fate. |
ending at the source
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then finally fear that lasts so long your sleep comes easily now, a trickle of wine's enough. |
Yet even in the successful poems the endings are sometimes too neat, and though they draw together the poems' themes, they rarely draw a conclusion from what's gone before.
The author's a computer programmer and this shows up in his tendency to trust the artificial rather than the natural
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At night there's no sun to lead you but satellite dishes all point in one direction. |
and even to see giraffes as programmers "debugging the horizon".
With a little more faith in natural subjects and treatments, I think the poet could develop the talents sporadically displayed here. As it is, the book remains an interesting but bumpy ride.
I thought that to write a review of one's own work was a really interesting idea for making you look more objectively at your work - I might try it myself. I would be interested to see how a review of your work might differ now.
ReplyDelete"I would be interested to see how a review of your work might differ now" - I'm slowly blogging about individual poems from "Moving Parts". I'm hoping that the perceived faults of that old collection were fixed by judicious selection - at least 2 of the poems I quoted from didn't make the cut.
ReplyDeletepreIt's an interesting thing putting together a collection isn't it? I have been thinking and reading about it - I am not sure that I have enough poems that I consider to be of a high enough standard - but then there is also the question of order and which poems go together (or not).
ReplyDelete"I have been thinking and reading about it - I am not sure that I have enough poems that I consider to be of a high enough standard - but then there is also the question of order and which poems go together (or not)." - I think there are courses (the poetry school?) on putting a collection together. I sent in more than twice the number of poems than needed, giving the ed enough material to pick both by quality and togetherness, I hope.
ReplyDeleteI don't often worry/comment about order when reading a booklet. I began mine with a birth, ended with a death and tried not to bounce around too much in the middle. I rather like books that are in vaguely themed sections.
yes I quite like that too - not so keen on ones where the sections seem to be random - I read one like that recently, I spent days trying to work out what the sections were doing...
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