"What must happen" by Jeffrey Wainwright (Carcanet, 2016)

I don't get the 12-stanza title poem. Here's a sample - "Now all the Sciences of History are at the door/ Or tent-flap, fly-screen, wire-entanglement/ And peer in. Still on their jotters there's little split/ Or spattered, and still they will reiterate:// 'Time must be History, and History an Idea"

Here's the start of "Going Global"

Smithereened along with Royal Art, I doubt our old cow-butter can be found among the world's new earthenware. China comes from China, as it may, my lady from Brazil

Cow-shaped butter-holders are no longer made? Or bulls butt cows, not china shops? Royal Art is art about royalty?

Or this, from "Manchukuo"

The true date of the start of World War II, this historian says, was September 18th 1931. This was the day the Empire of Japan, in becoming the Empire to vanquish Empires, invaded / liberated Manchuria / Manchukuo

I can make sense of it, but why all the line-breaks? Why not "This historian says that World War II really began when Japan, in becoming the Empire ...". Maybe the idea is that the historian should sound verbose, showing off their knowledge of dates?

What about these line-breaks, from "Agricola"?

tanks in fields for water or fuel oil; other containers improvised, white bath tubs with tide-lines, phosphoric green

"An Empty Street2 is 20 12-lined stanzas, each beginning, "What is there to an empty street". It's followed by "The Nearly Empty Street" which has a similar form. Surely they could have been shorter and have fewer line-breaks. Here's a sample stanza - This is that nearly empty street./ I could turn back/ but where would/ that get me to?/ Another street,/ but still walking,/ gait just the same/ though a limp might set in/ and I might want to stop./ But even if it takes a litter,/ I shall be llifted/ and carried forth. Later there's "To J.D.", 10 sections, each 3 stanzas of 3 lines, all but one section starting with "My dear friend, where are you now?".

Other reviews

• Sean O'Brien (Jeffrey Wainwright’s work is among the most interesting of any poet now writing)
• Claire Crowther (things and people go nowhere or break up or become nothing. The appearance of the negative on seemingly every page ... risks dreariness and is only saved here by the cutwork delicacy of the lines.)