A "New and Selected".
Poems like "The Idiot Boy" puzzle me. I don't understand what the poet's trying to do. In "Shepherd at work" I like the dogs' point-of-view - "Two tumbling, juggling dogs/ Pour like water over the rough of the landscape./ Working as his interpreters,// They crouch, magnetic, Holding in the sheep/ And held by them." - but not the sheep - "Munch, munch,/ Between the sea and sky,/ At the heather line,/ Scattered and stout as rocks,/ All winter we survive/ To make at last/ Your twin-set and your vest,/ Your butcher's holiday"
The final line of "Fisher Willie In Hospital" makes it into a good poem. In
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A Very Cold Winter So cold, the wool Cannot keep the sheep. Trees, in their tinkling skins, Are leafless and complete. |
why "tinkling"? I like when the language takes off as in
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The superficial rain dances and sings, sobers and steadies, seeps and carries on down To manufacture coal-and-diamond stuff Or sharpen rot, where only darkness is And carcases, and promises That make men mine the pit, and die of the dead weight Of earth and water mixed (p.30) |
but too often the language becomes leaden. I like the start of At First, My Daughter - "She is world without understanding" but not the ending -
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In touch we are celebrating The first and last moments Of being together and separate Indissolute - till we are split By time, and growth, and man, The things I made her with. |
Tidy or twee?
"Disabilities" is a good idea that putters out. I like "How was it up there?" - how a male astronaut's wife forgives (and feels sorry for) her husband's mistress, the moon. "Life-cycle of the moth" is made purely of moth names, from "Peach-blossom, muslin" to "Ghost swift". I like "People are fun to notice -/ Their eyes taking off like birds/ Away from their words/ To settle on breasts and ankles/ Irreverent as pigeons" ("People Etcetera") but the effect's watered down by the surrounding stanzas.
The final section has a 3 page monologue (prose really) - Jesus/God holds a press conference where he announced that "The crucifixion will not take place". I like these lines from "Tube Station" - "It smells of dead pennies [] The tunnel has begun to scream". In "Good Season" "Leeks lounge, ladylike/ In long white gloves/ In sleek boutiques". But do they really? Poems like the final piece "It doesn't add up" were common enough in the 80s, claiming that word processors smooth style too much - "All words,/ By this excellent apparatus, are turned into water,/ Fluent, lucid, and running/ Under the bridge and away"
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