Ben Stainton reviews
by Rhian Edwards
At a time when contemporary poetry seems to be leaning towards
the anti-lyrical, the anti-personal, the irony-heavy and the ‘shrugging’ (to
use Jack Underwood’s description), Rhian Edwards’ debut collection –
autobiographical, image-laden, crafted and musical – takes its cues from more
traditional sources. This is a poetry of the expected, inasmuch as it does what
poems are ‘supposed to do’ – speak about the writer’s firsthand (quirky,
affecting, disturbing) experiences in a relatively uncomplicated, feelingly
anecdotal way. No bad thing for those who require or admire such qualities in
poetry; and this approach is sometimes telling. The absolute clarity of
‘Parents’ Evening’, for example, offers up some attractive lines and even the
weaker-seeming units function in the abbreviated manner of a school report –
She has
failed to grasp the planets…
has proven
violent in games…
has learned to darn starfish
As an opening indicator of the autobiography to come, this
works well – there is humour, familiarity allowing a subtle collusion with the
reader, and a blackly comic denouement – (she) ‘insists upon your death / as
the conclusion to all her stories.’
The trouble with this kind of
biographical re-rendering though, is that the poet has to make us care, as
readers, about the time a bird hatched in their airing cupboard (‘The
Hatching’), or ‘the school holiday we played knock-a-door-run…’ (‘Camposuil’).
Luckily, Edwards’ arsenal of charming anecdotes is substantial – the childhood
/ adolescent pieces are likeable, down-to-earth, and stocked with immediately
striking imagery, and as we progress from adolescence through deep-seated angst
(‘Unmentionable’) and the melancholy of rediscovering a childhood toy –
you are… moribund,
a Rosebud,
a relic
put out to
pasture, living
proof we
were once something else
(‘Steed’)
Edwards cleverly encourages empathy and identification by
dealing with familiar subjects – teenage jealousies, one-night-stands,
dissatisfaction at work (the excellent, ambiguous ‘Alison’) – allowing herself
some linguistic breathing space in the process. Metaphors bob up and down;
obliquity creeps in.
In its second half, the book’s
speaker is embroiled in domestic, sometimes bleak situations; extra-marital
affairs, drunkenness, and the language understandably takes a darker, less
ebullient turn. The feeling remains of reality reflecting back at us, as if
these are experiences the poet needed to slough off or unburden herself from –
not quite confessional in the fevered sense of Plath or Sexton, they
nonetheless occasionally take on the manner of well-crafted therapy sessions;
enjoying improbable metaphors – ‘the house turned against you… / pushed you
down the stairs, / stabbed you in the hand’ (‘The Good Hand’), cute reversals –
‘pick-pocketing five more minutes / from a clock that rolls its eye’
(‘Quotidian’) and witty half-rhymes –
Looking me
dizzy
licking me
drunk
in the face
of our nudity
I am not
nearly naked enough
(‘Eyeful’)
Edwards’ register shifts
impressively when she casts her eye around her hometown for characters. ‘Going
Back for Light’, an anomaly within the collection, is an earthy, entirely
convincing portrait of ‘Danny’ who ‘got blacklisted at the colliery for making
ructions’. Semi-prose, half-affectionate and almost satirical, it contains
something rich of the world the poet once inhabited. Similarly, in the
concluding ‘Girl Meats Boy’ (winner of the John Tripp Award, 2011), the voice
abruptly becomes huge and essential; the language overflowing with an
inventiveness reminiscent of Dylan Thomas but also entirely her own; as if a
tap has been trickling in secret and is now manically flooding the bathroom. We
are reminded, through such energy, pace and playfulness, that this is a poet
actually in love with poetry, rather than half-mocking it from the margins. At
a time when sincerity and ‘the personal’ are generally viewed as badges of
uncool, Clueless Dogs is like two
fingers in the face of fashion; proud of its constructions, unselfconscious in
the act of remembering.
Ben Stainton’s poems
are forthcoming in Coin Opera 2, SSYK (5) and the Bloodaxe anthology Dear World and Everyone in it.
Comments