"Father myself" by James McDermott (Nine arches press, 2025)

Poems from Dreich, Atrium, Southword, Poetry Wales, Magma, Cardiff Review, etc.

It's rather short compared to NAP's usual books - 54 pages, with several poems that are 6 lines or less.

The poems deal with his father's COVID death. Among the observations that appear in other hospital pieces (tubes being pulled out, etc) there are phrases that catch the eye. In "Fight", with his father fighting for breath, he's the "pround parent cheering you at sports day", like how his father used to urge him on. The ending is

[] strong mind wouldn't beat weak body I stop wailing at you       replace the mask to hold your hand in mine      as cold and thin as gold medal       neither of us could win

I like the comparison that's made, and the way the hands meet. It's in couplets, the final one rhyming. Most of the poem's lines are 10 syllabled, many of them (though not the last) iambic (imitating the father's breath? I doubt it). Using gaps (that only sometimes replace punctuation) seems unhelpfully poetic to me, as does the removal of "the" before "gold". The gaps and the omission of "the" happens in other poems too, sometimes. In this poem why not remove the "the" before "mask" as well? And the "as" before "cold" isn't needed.

"Fit as a fiddle" ends with

[] boasting I'm fit as a fiddle    your strings have snapped your neck was trached    your body ventilated now your song's stopped and I hear violins

It's a sonnet. The syllabic pattern is closely observed this time. The title doesn't seem optimal and the ending sounds contrived.

In "Chapel of Rest" a theme re-appears (as do the non-punctuation gaps)

[] swollen cheeks rouged    like mine aged twelve when you lost me in Mum's make-up    called me sissy

Stanza 3 of "Shauny Bubble" is

I clock you erupt in boiling water as I stir two a.m. tea in your Best Dad mug   I clock you trapped in a spirit level still reminding me I'm not straight

What does the first line mean? Syntax is deliberately disrupted, but why? And what has a spirit level to do with straightness?

In "Mug", "grief has made me mug with hole in". Here, "mug" isn't a verb. The narrator feels as useless as a mug (a gullible person?) with a hole in it. Why the disruption? And do mugs have holes? They crack don't they?

For me, the style in poems like "Chapel of Rest" is uneasily close to being prose, as if they began as prose and were then given a poetry once-over. And it's difficult dealing with this topic without in some way repeating what others have done (I note that Paul Stephenson is mentioned on the "Thanks" page). Poems on p.32, p.35, p.42, p.44 sound familiar.

Why does "Virus" have "the TV/ shows you Richard of York give battle in vain" (why "give" rather than "gave" (to match the saying) or "giving" (to match the syntax)?

The most telling lines are often saved for the endings - a photo frame is a "six by four-inch casket"; "we are all lit fuses"; "we didn't say/ too much father    like gods we spoke through acts"; "I throw in your towel    wonder if you did".

The penultimate poem "James" pulls together the strands relating to the father's attitude to his son's sexuality. At 6 the narrator identified more with the spangly Spice Girls than James Bond. At 16, the narrator comes out and the father turns his back. When the narrator's 26 the father asks if he's dating and then says he had a bi brother called James who killed himself. I don't think we need to be told at the end that "James comes from Hebrew name Jacob/ which means to supplant    to take the place of".

I liked "Black Wheelbarrow" most.