Andy Brown (ed.): The
Allotment: New Lyric Poets
(Stride Publications, Devoran, Cornwall., 2006; paperback,
219pp, £10.00; isbn 190502407X)
In the introduction to this new Stride anthology Andy
Brown is keen to distance himself, and the book, from what he portrays
as the unnecessary binary politics of the contemporary poetry scene.
Much has been said on this subject already, by Brown and by others,
so I'd rather concentrate on the fact that this is, as Andy Brown says,
'an anthology of poetry and the poems must speak for themselves'.
Because of Brown's decision to cultivate 'a small plot of
land rented from plural traditions' the volume ranges widely, from
Aiofe Mannix's controlled but pleasingly off-kilter confessions
to Luke Kennard's original and startlingly imaginative lyrical
pyrotechnics. This is all to the good. There are few places where the
work of young writers, from different creative traditions, with little
in common apart from clear understanding of their craft and a measure
of what passes for commercial success in poetry, can be found together.
There are poets here who, because of the influences and ideologies I
have encountered in the course of my own critical and creative development,
I've not, or hardly, come across. And I think this would be the
case for any reader who, like me, doesn't have the luxury (?) of
a 9-5 poetry career.
Take Sreejata (a.k.a. Tupa) Snyder: because she lives near Exeter, my
home town, I heard her read a poem once at a magazine launch. I remember
being impressed, going home and doing a Google search, and not coming
up with much. She's the sort of writer I always long to find in
magazines, but seldom seem to, though I notice there's some of
her work in a forthcoming edition of Shearsman. Her poems are
vivid in their invocative imagery, concision and taut rhythms:
If I say 'I', I become
your grey mufti
or a maroon tie.
A walk by the flower stalls
near West End, a café
while it pours with rain.
Your steps on the stairs,
your dark brown eyes and
where was I?
Even the line-breaks are beautiful, something to me so necessary if
a poem is to be truly lyrical in the way music is: here, like musical
rests or pauses, the breaks don't disrupt the flow of sense, either
intellectual or lyric-technical, but relax forward motion and create
an almost spiritual hiatus. Mastery of this is essential if you're
going to write the best kind of realist lyrics and Sreejata Snyder's
got it, along with a skilful and distinctive way with syllabic sound-structures.
Can we have a book please?
Another unfamiliar name is Kit Lambert. His blend of surreal prose poetry
and slightly less imaginative lyric poetry is pleasing if not quite,
to my mind, fully formed. It's a shame that his work here is preceded
by Luke Kennard's, whose sound-world and narrative voice in a similarly
contrasting mixture of prose poetry and 'poetry poetry' is
more controlled and authoritative. The alphabetical order of poets does
Lambert a disservice. But there's much to enjoy in his work, especially
in the prose poems. He's hard to quote from, as much of the effect
of his work relies on sequential context, but here goes. I love the film
noir quality of this prose poem sonnet:
She fell in love, left with a shapeless man who sold
bibles (and prophylactics on the sly) to the carefree glaziers of South
Belfast. She had a cruel angular face, but she was a Lisburn harpy & her
voice could make a man sell his soul for the chance to bury himself
in her flesh.
The more I read Lambert's work the more it grows on me and I'm
looking forward to seeing the sonnet-sequence excerpted here presented
in full at some point.
There's material from established writers in The Allotment too.
By established I mean these writers have at least one collection out,
or regularly appear in well-known magazines. They're not all done
a service by this book. I enjoyed Scott Thurston's recent collection, Hold,
but didn't warm to the extracts from it here, which do not represent
the best of his writing. The sequence 'Where is Love?' doesn't
work for me. The faux naïve opening is a little mawkish:
Where is love?
Love has lost its way.
While in my heart its blind trueness
Sharpens like a needle every day.
This kind of satire/ imitation archaism is too clumsy to be effective.
Later we hit:
A blunt tab is that we pull over
Put upon the ruined counter
The worktop of choice with a charred
Coaster, a cracked lip, a screwdriver.
'is that' again sounds archaic in the context, and unmusically
clunky: a cardinal sin in an overtly lyrical poem. As a whole, Scott
Thurston's new collection is intelligent, full of challenging and
exciting work, and extremely accomplished technically, so if you want
to know how good he is buy it and don't be put off by his showing
here.
Among the more established names, the work of Abi Curtis
and Luke Kennard really stands out. Abi Curtis has been widely
published in magazines and journals but as far as I know (and according
to her biography here) is yet to put out a collection, so it's good to
have the chance to read a sizable and varied selection of her work. She's
particularly good at hook-lines. Here's the opening of 'Hong Kong':
I was a gwailo, waiting on the harbour-front, buttoned-up in itchy green.
No doubt, the sweat drawing its way down my starched collar smelt to
others of milk and butter. Junks dunked in the brown water, lit up from
above by dragons of neon.
The use of an unusual word at the outset has the strange
effect of drawing you in. Often, if I don't understand a word in the
first line of a poem I become defensive and decide the poet is pretentious,
but here, because the word 'gwailo' is so enticing I found myself wanting
to know what a gwailo does, where one might live, even what hobbies
a gwailo might enjoy. And the lovely gluggy sound of 'junks dunked in
brown water' is one of the really great moments in this book. It's
the sort of line that, when you've written it, must make you feel
like sitting back and enjoying a massage and a 250ml goblet of
the gloopiest indulgence. Instead Abi Curtis treats us to a string of
almost equally beautiful sentences. Her contribution is worth the price
of the book on its own.
It's exciting too to see new work from Luke Kennard, whose first
collection The Solex Brothers struck me as probably the most
interesting debut of 2005. With one exception that book was made up of
sequences and it's interesting to see him work with more concentrated
forms here. This is the second and final stanza of 'Glass':
I'm staring at an unlit candle,
Thinking of a lit candle –
Which is no way to light a candle,
But a fine way of saving it.
You used to scratch your arms, but now
Nothing is wrong, my dearest one:
Your most horrible thoughts are just
The broken glass in an unbroken glass.
I love this combination of wit and lyricism, tinged with real sadness.
And there's comfort of a sort. This poem is darker, more tender,
and less exuberant than Kennard's other pieces here (and in The
Solex Brothers) and serves as a foil to the rest of his 'set' of
imaginative leaps of faith and dizzying word play. Luke Kennard's
is probably the most distinctive voice in The Allotment, and
I won't spoil anybody's joy in discovering an entirely new
indigenous species with further unnecessary pruning and grafting.
This anthology represents the fruits (and flowers and
vegetables) of a truly worthwhile enterprise and Andy Brown must
be commended for producing it. The range and variety of young talent
on display is extraordinary in its inclusiveness. The only question
is whether we're all mature enough yet to leave our manifestos
at home and enjoy a catholic selection of exciting writing from
some of the most accomplished young (ish) poets writing
in English. I wonder. Wherever you stand on the binary divide,
I reckon this is a book worth buying. I promise you will find something
in it to interest you.
