Poems from Magma, Poetry, Poetry Birmingham, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Shearsman, etc., along with winners of 1st prizes in Poetry London and Ambit competitions, etc. There are 3 pages of notes, including a link to a note by Poetry (Chicago) including the none too helpful "The poem is a verbal doily; the space between Clarkson’s words grants her lines a delicate texture".
The first poem seems slight to me. Afric McGlinchey writes "No poem here is without a second or third layer, not even the seemingly slight opening poem, which captures a fleeting moment where the speaker enters a cafe.". To me it's a decent paragraph from a story with the rest of the story removed. Writing short stories isn't easy.
Not a promising start, but at least I feel I understand it, which more than can be said for the second piece, “Camelament”. Camel? Lament? It's sort of explained in the notes. Afric McGlinchey writes "we are introduced to some of the nuances of this collection: a cutting-off, and a venturing into new territory, which is not without its own dangers: “a chain of Cheyennes / touches the lodge of / an enemy. You explode / flat on the floor. Fat / on fear. Flayed / with sharp, and hot, and not.’ Tonally pitch-perfect, Clarkson’s assonant rhythms, unexpected language, collations and juxtapositions are alive with mercurial ingenuity and compressed emotional intensity". Ingenuity? Emotional intensity? "Fat on fear"?
The 3rd poem, "Novice's Diurnal", begins with "The ritual of dressing: vest yourself/ with shirt of hare, to keep you fleet// of heart, not bound to anyone". I can see plays on divest, hair-shirt and "fleet of foot", and there's pun on bound. The rest of the poem confuses me.
The next poem, "Cremella's Truth Tower", begins with "She goes up each day to the tip of the tower and looks out/ for Truth" (tip of the tower?) and includes "look, see, the horizon's a prim rose drawing us in/ to an adult colouring challenge. Amalgamate/ to speculate. Seven varieties of untruth dwell in the castle,/ subfunctional." - I don't get it.
The plot of "For our extinguished guest" is that a father visits his daughter's nunnery. "He glimpses her three times a day through the grille". Soon after he leaves, she escapes. I don't think the poetical adornments help.
Then there's an unrhymed sonnet, beginning with
|
Leonardo and the Birds of Clay You drew a perfect circles in the sand. Your talent was upfront, a nonpareil Your hands pearled plumage for the birds you'd turned in clay. Or so they say - to me it seemed you'd plucked each, sleeping, from the shore |
Iambic pentameter - is "maker's" missed before "hands"? "turned in clay" is a phrase used about making pottery on a wheel. Giotto is famous for the circle, and I've not heard about da Vinci's clay birds, so maybe this is another Leonardo (ah, the notes say it was written after Leonard Cohen's penultimate UK concert. Which doesn't help much). 14 pages later "Leonardo and the Birds of Clay, Enclosed" includes "You drew a perfect circles in the sand. Use your finger or a twig or a sable brush - try an oval. Your talent was upfront, a nonpareil. Frank, ducat, without equal, penny parable, unparalleled.Your maker's hands pearled plumage for the birds Knit one, a bird of grey, what plumage is he? you'd turned in clay. Or so they say - to me You turned in clay lots of other men's wives, . it seemed you'd plucked each, sleeping, from the shore". I've seen this device before. I don't understand it here. It's described in the notes, sort of.
I'm clearly hopelessly out of my depth, having inappropriate expectations and using inappropriate aesthetic judgements. I'll skim the rest of the book rather than abandon it immediately.
Other reviews
- Afric McGlinchey (The title is echoed in the titles of the three sections of the collection ‑ [monikers], [overcoat], [flesh] ... the reader is in for a feast of juxtaposition, unusual metaphor and conceit, highly charged lines and double entendres. Using wit as a palate cleanser, Clarkson guides the reader through sensations and emotional turbulences even when narrative layers and autobiographical details are kept deliberately opaque. ... no fewer than five poems have already appeared in Poetry Magazine (Chicago). ... Clarkson even includes two versions of the same poem – “Leonardo and the Birds of Clay” ‑ first as a sonnet and then (fourteen pages later) written as a prose poem, the original sonnet (marked in bold) embedded within the text.)
- Pam Thompson
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