Shearsman 59: Reviews

Tony Frazer

Book Reviews

3 Books from Flood Editions

Graham Foust: As In Every Deafness
(Flood Editions, Chicago, 2003. 66pp, pb, $13, ISBN 0-9710059-8-2)

Flood Editions is rapidly developing a fine list of beautifully-produced volumes of poetry. I'm jealous, quite frankly. Graham Foust's debut collection is a case in point. The book is full of exquisite minimal lyrics of a kind that I just don't see here in the UK. These are tightly-wound, reduced, all excess verbiage excluded, and the results bring the reader into a mysterious world — at their most exposed these poems run the risk of descending into inconsequentiality (and don't always avoid it — the 15-word Night Train is a case in point). But when Foust has the confidence to go for it, with a slightly less reduced word-count, the final artefact sparkles:

my vein burns
astray—

a small dark
movie's being made

*

a new room an old year your
hand my answer

slowly disowned
into flickering leisure—

ashes and that
was my day

*

I'm losing your
voice and I'll
die in your sleep.

Bury me up
to my kite
in clean needles.

( Cotton Fever )

I'm still wondering about the arrival of those full-stops in the third section.

Some of this work can feel a little like the poetry of Simon Perchik or David Jaffin, but it retains a level of compression and ellipsis that would be unthinkable for those two older poets. Early Creeley might get us closer, but not too close. In the end, Foust is very much his own man. As In Every Deafness is a book with a light touch which contains deft, minimal lyrics that defy convention and expectation. Their lightness, their apparently simple surfaces, hide puzzles and mysteries — shadows beyond the words. A wonderful book.

John Tipton: Surfaces
(Flood Editions, Chicago, 2004. 37pp, pb, $13, ISBN 0-9746092-0-1).

Another first collection from a young (or young-ish) poet, but in a very different style. It's a puzzling volume, actually, which contains some very interesting poems and also some that go straight past me without stopping. Tipton is someone worth tracking from here on, I'd suggest, but I don't feel this is a successful collection. The design of the book is superb, of course.

John Taggart: Pastorelles
(Flood Editions, Chicago, 2004. 104pp, pb, $13.95, ISBN 0-9746902-1-4)

This one has been extracted to become Book of the Month for May 2004. See here for the review.

Federico García Lorca: Poems, chosen and translated by Paul Blackburn, with drawings by Basil King. (Stop Press, London, 2000. 76pp, pb, £9.50. ISBN 0-95229961-7-0)

I've always had a soft spot for Paul Blackburn's work, and was delighted to see this edition appear in the UK – it's a reissue of a book originally put out by Momo's Press, San Francisco in 1979. Alas, having now read the book a few times, and compared its versions at some length with other English versions of García Lorca, I have to say that I find Blackburn's attempts deficient in many ways. The translations are often wilful, and seem to be attempting a recomposition in English, in a style not far removed from Blackburn's own. I find many of the results a travesty of the fine originals. So, this is a book I wanted to like, but couldn't. Sorry.

Lee Harwood: Evening Star
(Leafe Press, Nottingham. ISBN 0-9535401-0-3, chapbook, 31pp, £3.50 / $7.00)

This little gem of a publication is Lee Harwood's first collection since Morning Star (Slow Dancer, 1998) and will be welcome to all his admirers. Now, this will also be available in the same author's Collected Poems which Shearsman Books is publishing in May 2004, but, if you already have the author's earlier collections, this is a good and economical way of keeping up with his more recent work.

The style of Lee Harwood's later work is similar to the material in Morning Light — which was a particularly fine collection — and you might say that the work has matured. The poet inhabits these spaces with a calm and easy naturalness, the quick surface belying the poet's craft and the deft handling of the line:

Like an imagined sea
sheets of paper covering
the heaving waves
All the impossible words
words you won't hear

(from A Dark Face in the Silver)

Sue Hubbard: Ghost Station
(Salt Publishing, Cambridge, 2004. 112pp, pb, £8.95 / $13.95. ISBn 1-84471-035-1)

Salt has an unpredictable list and this volume makes it even more so. So far most of their material has come from the more experimental side of the fence, but Ms Hubbard's book would not be out of place on the far more predictable Bloodaxe list. Her previous collection appeared 10 years ago and registered vaguely on my antennae, but I was by no means familiar with her work. She has won prizes, and come close to winning others, standard calling-cards for successful mainstream poets in Britain today, and there is indeed an undoubted air of competence, of craft, in this work.

The opening poem, 'Nude in a Bathtub' is one of that awkward genre, the poem about a painting (in this case Bonnard, an artist in whom I have little interest, though he too was a good craftsman). Now, if a poem is to spring from a painting, I've always felt it has to offer insight. The problem with the kind of poems-about-a-painting offered by Ms Hubbard is that they suffer from being third hand — that is, in being a description of a description of a primary experience. It also smells more than a little of the (poetry) workshop: if you can't find anything else to write about, try looking at a painting you like. Now, I know I'm being a little unfair here, but the fact is that this poem offers little in terms of art. It does offer good craftsmanship, although it slides into cliché on more than one occasion — as here:

          So many times
he has drawn her, caught the obsessive

soaping of her small breasts,
compressed the crunching frame into
his picture space, the nervy movements
that hemmed in all his life.

This slackness is overcome at the end, where the final half dozen lines bring the poem to a satisfying close, but overall still leave me feeling that this poem was unnecessary:

And from the landing, his memory tricks,
as through the open door the smudged

floor glistens with silvered tracks,
her watered foot prints to and from
the tub where she floats in almond oil
deep in her sarcophagus of light.

Back to good rhythm and sound diction, from a sagging middle.

The book as a whole is enlivened by an interesting use of diction, a knack for a good turn of phrase —

En masse, they were, he realised,
the earth's natural geologists, noted how
a piece of drained marl

harrowed then ploughed
by the heavy tread of feathered cobs
would disclose beneath its fine tilth,

the soft mulch of vegetable decay,
blue shards of pottery, splinters of ivory bone
ejected at the mouth of casts.

It's possible, seeing that last piece, that I've been a little too stern about this book — Sue Hubbard writes well in much of it. The nub of the problem is that I find a lot of it uninspired, and workmanlike rather than revelatory. I'd like to see more risks taken, especially given her obvious armoury of skills. In truth there's rather too much poetry like this around at the moment, and it's odd to say of a Salt author that s/he could just as well be in the Cape or Bloodaxe lists. In one sense, that's a good sign: no getthoising here, and the maintenance of a broad-church approach. On the other hand, I suspect there's more challenging, and indeed more honest material out there that seems to be part of the 'mainstream' but needs support in the face of a narrow-minded set of taste-makers. In the past, brave publishers rescued the likes of F.T. Prince, Francis Berry, Karen Gershon etc from oblivion. I imagine that's still possible, but who are their equivalents today? I wish someone would let me know…

Ruth Padel: 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem
(Vintage, London, 2004, pb, 272pp, £6.99)

Ruth Padel, a noted mainstream British poet, regular prize-winner and author of several well-regarded volumes, had a column for more than a year at The Independent newspaper in London, where she analysed contemporary poems for the broadsheet audience. The column was cancelled after some 30 months when a new editor, who was not keen on the analysis (but apparently had no problem with the poems), came on board. Now, this book has already been superbly dissected in Poetry Review a few months ago, where the book's stated assumptions and much of the editor's puffery of her former position were tested to a somewhat caustic gaze. Since that job has been done, I shall not bother to rake over those particular coals again.

The basic principle of the book, and of the original column, is something that one can hardly take exception to, and Ms Padel does a sound job of analysis, as far as I can see. As you might expect (if you read these reviews frequently), I'm not too excited by the choice of poems, although I also understand that one would not wish to frighten away the newspaper's reading public. The choice of poems here is a little odd — almost half are by English poets and a further dozen are by Irish poets (I conflate the north and the Republic here). There's not single poem by a Welsh poet, and only five by Americans (one of whom lives in the the UK and another one of whom was born in the UK). New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the West Indies get one each. Four or five of the poets might be described as coming from ethnic minorities in the UK. (So what about the Welsh ?). Anyway, let's assume Ms Padel selected the ones she thought worked best, or maybe the poems she liked best. It's as good as any other selection process in a project such as this one. Its intended audience is the literate public that does not read poetry, so I suppose I should not be reviewing it at all.

The introduction is more than a little tiresome. I am frankly fed up with the repeated trope that the literate public is put off by the difficulty and obscurantism of contemporary poetry, when 99% of the poetry that they can find in the journals and books that are most easily available to them is anything but difficult. Someone who's never read a contemporary poem before might well have a problem at first with John Ashbery (for instance, who is usually represented on the shelves of bookstores here), but no more so, I would suggest, than they would with some contemporary prose writing — which is rarely criticised for obscurantism etc. The problem with contemporary UK verse, in my view, is that there is an undifferentiated mass of it, and most of it is uninteresting in form, language or content. Not because it's difficult. And if I hear elitism placed in the context of poetry one more time, I think I'm going to scream. It is not elitist to write difficult, obscure, rebarbative poetry. If people don't want to read it, it just doesn't matter at all. Ditto watching avant-garde films, experiencing conceptual art, listening to free jazz, etc etc. Each will find their audiences somehow, and these audiences should not be patronised (as the audiences for, say, Roger McGough's poetry should not be patronised either). What I cannot tolerate, however, is the claim (implicit here) that this is Poetry. Capital P. This IS IT. There's nothing else. Sorry, but there is; there's a world of wildly different kinds of poetry, some of it even published by mainstream London and Manchester publishers. And for goodness sake, stop this elitism nonsense...

Frances Presley: Paravane. New and Selected Poems 1996-2003
(Salt Publishing, Cambridge, 126pp, pb, 8.5ins x 5.5ins, £8.95 / $13.95, ISBN 1-844710-42-4)

This is Frances Presley's largest collection and the book does both the poet and the reading public a great service in allowing us to get an idea of the range of her recent work. For her earlier work, you should try to get hold of the Linocut from Oasis Books, which covers work immediately prior to this collection.

The poems in the title sequence, which opens the book, employ a whole range of post-modern techniques, disruption and parataxis chief amongst them, while using a mixture of material — from contemporary post-9/11 concerns to medieval hagiography. Transitions tend to be abrupt, and collage seems to be a primary factor in the organisation of some of the material. These procedures mark a significant shift from some of Ms Presley's other recent material, such as Somerset Letters — part of which is also included here — where more traditional systems are used. Paravane is a marked by an exploration of language, and in places by a distrust of language and what it can be used to describe, how it can be used by inimical forces. I see the invocation of medieval saints as a nod towards the mysteries of the divine, where language becomes the tool of revelation. Thus in the poem, 'Julian of Norwich', there is an emphasis on sound, incantation:

rillets hail
          storfold
clustered chrsanthemums
          bench burn mark
burn all benchmarks
          mark this bench

It's tempting to see that penultimate line as a cry against the managerialism so beloved by the current UK government, while harking back to a more innocent, a more credulous age.

The surface of the Paravane poems is markedly more exploratory than in the other sections. This is partly due to the use of more inherently fragmentary material, but also, I think, to a conscious desire to experiment with alternative forms. The texts in Somerset Letters are much more direct, though, even here, the author mixes verse and prose, sometimes within a single poem, the prose being used for more a factual recording of events.

Rosmarie Waldop: Blindsight
(New Directions, New York, 2003. 114pp, pb, $15.95 / C$24. ISBN 0-8112-1559-8)

For a good many years it was possible to regard Rosmarie Waldrop as a fine small-press poet, a brilliant translator (above all of Edmond Jabès), and an essential publisher (of Burning Deck Books in Providence). Slowly, stealthily, her own work as a poet/prose-poet has become absolutely central, not to say essential. This is her fourth collection from New Directions, the doyen of New York poetry publishers, and it firmly cements her reputation, in my view. I'm often flummoxed by prose-poetry, as it's often prose that's not good enough to make it as real prose, and also not good enough to make it as a poem in left-adjusted lines.

These problems don't exist here, perhaps because the author looks back to assorted French models, even while never losing her American edge. This prose is definitely poetic, and it has all the edginess of current American innovative poetry. It defies quotation, notwithstanding its apparently through-composed prose character. The range of techniques on display is exciting, and her use of collage in the title section should be a lesson to others who think they know how to do this. The book has a density that most poetry today does not come near achieving. Go out and buy it. Now.

Phylum Press

Last year (or was it the year before?), I welcomed some chapbooks from Phylum Press, the extraordinary US small press which gives its books away, has a fine roster of poets, and all of whose publications are individually designed by artists. Two more have recently come my way in the form of Lorraine Graham's prose poetry, a 9-page pamphlet called Dear [Blank] / I believe in Other Worlds, and Richard Deming & Nancy Kuhl's two-handed mini-poetry-collection, Winter 2003. Both are exquisitely designed, and contain fine work.

Also here is a little anthology from Simon Cutts' Coracle Press, now based in Ireland. A Phylum Press Selection (ed. Deming & Kuhl, ISBN 0-906630-18-5, 2003, 36pp, paperback, €5.00 from the press at Ballybeg Grange, Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland) is a fine summing-up of the first two years of activity at Phylum and is a worthy tribute, put together with all the care you would expect from Coracle. This is worth tracking down, though I confess I don't know where it can be bought, and it makes a good introduction to the kind of work that the editors have been able to attract to their very different little press.

Salt roundup:

It's almost impossible to keep up with Salt's voluminous output, and I seem to have become buried in a mountain of books waiting to be given a review of some kind — not all of them from Salt, I should add. In view of this, I'm reintroducing short notices for some books. Occasionally this means that I don't feel that my time would be rewarded by spending more of it on the book in question; at times it just means that I'm buried in work and something had to give somewhere, or, indeed, that — should there be a group of particularly interesting titles in a short period — I'm concentrating my efforts on something else.

Jeff Nuttall: Selected Poems
(Salt, Cambridge, 2003. 264pp, pb, £11.95 / $18.95. ISBN 1-84471-013-0)

Jeff Nuttall died in December last year, just as this book came out. He was, by all accounts, an all-round good fellow, and I vaguely remember his work from the early 1970s, in the wake of his pop-sociological book Bomb Culture. I never particularly enjoyed his poetry, and this book does little to make me rethink that position. I suspect some of them would have bern fun 'live', preferably with the author's jazz-playing friends in tow, but this is no book for a contemplative read at home. I wish I could be more welcoming.

Ulli Freer: Speakbright Leap Password. New & Selected Poems
(Salt, Cambridge, 2004. 156pp, pb, £9.95 / $15.95. ISBN 1-84471-002-5)

Another of Salt's worthy revivals, this volume brings together extremely elusive works from a man who has been a fixture in the alternative poetry world in London for many years. I'm unconvinced by the work, even if I'm glad that Freer's poetry has been offered to a wider public. Enough people I respect disagree with me about Freer's work, as evidenced by blurbs here from Robert Sheppard and Andrew Duncan.

Eugenio Montejo: The Trees. Selected Poems 1967-2004
(translated by Peter Boyle, Salt, Cambridge, 2004. 150pp, pb, £9.95 / $15.95).

It's good to see translations coming though of poets who are unknown in the UK. Montejo is a Colombian poet in his mid-60s, who writes in what might best be described as the broadly recognisable modern Hispanic tradition. He's been well translated by Peter Boyle here, very well indeed, in fact, so you need have no qualms about accuracy, or his decisions as to what actually constitutes accuracy. The poems are first-person-oriented, observant, reflective, meditative. Recommended.

Nick Totton: Press When Illuminated. New & Selected Poems 1968-2003
(Salt Publishing, Cambridge, 2004. 213pp, pb, £9.95 / $15.95. ISBN 1-844710-39-4)

I've had some books by Nick Totton on my shelves for decades, but I've never really felt then urge to take them down and read them again. He also turned up in the anthology A Various Art, edited by Crozier and Longville for Carcanet in the late 1980s (and also available for a while as a paperback from Paladin). That anthology is one of the best of the past 30 or 40 years, but I've never really understood why Totton was included: I can only assume that the editors liked his work more than I do — a fair assumption, given that he often appeared in Grosseteste Review and had books from the GR press.

Much of the work seems stuck in the 60s and 70s from the point of view of sensibility, but it doesn't have the kind of exciting surfaces and explorations that I really look for. Having said that, I think it's a valuable book to have put out, if only because — in common with a number of other poets of the period — it's been impossible until now to get a clear sense of Totton's work as a whole. The fact that I don't go for it is not really relevant here: whole swathes of British poetry of this period were as good as invisible to the general public. Salt and others have been making sure that the invisible is made visible and that can only be a good thing. So, this one's not for me, but I salute the enterprise behind it.