Katherine
Lockton reviews Don't Go There by Colm
Keegan
In
putting his debut collection together Colm Keegan draws on a great many
resources including input by service users from Depaul and extracts from spoken
word plays.
There
is much to praise in Keegan’s Don’t Go
There when it is at its best. His
use of simple, clear language where he plays with and explores the imagination
and curiosity of a child is the biggest triumph in his collection. It is a
world where “they say that even the blades/of the helicopter came from/the seed
of the sycamore tree.”
It
is simple yet evocative lines such as:
Today’s
streets are colder
without
their smiles
under
the orange streetlights.
that
really show what Keegan is capable of when he is in his stride. Keegan is at
his best when painting pictures for the reader as his use of transparent
language allows him to produce an uncomplicated, vivid image that we can see in
our minds.
Keegan
is also great at conjuring up a forgotten Dublin:
the
thing that never goes away
is
that everybody spoke like this once.
We
are what was before.
Again,
it is his use of clear diction and arresting, engaging vocabulary that creates
an image of a rarely seen Dublin far away from the one portrayed by the media:
Sometimes
I think of Dublin
like
a huge dirt ridden blanket –
moth
eaten
holy
like
something
shrouding
a homeless man
something
he tries to
smooth
and smooth
something
he thinks
can
keep him warmer
but
it never can.
The
simplicity of Keegan’s words mean that he can create violent images;
he
wants to take your butterfly
crush
it in his hand
make
you eat the broken wings
without
overpowering the reader or being over-poetic or trying too hard.
Another
aspect of Keegan’s poetry that makes it stand out is his use of rhythm:
Are you alright?
Are you alright?
they
say.
While
trying to reason this.
How
close we came.
which
effortlessly allows the reader to take in all that he is saying and creating.
Keegan’s
collaborative poetry with service users is perhaps the most interesting part of
the collection as the poems within that part have a childlike innocence and
romance to them. In poems such as ‘Nicola’ we are invited into a world of
“main” men, “secrets” and “oil slicks” where we watch over shoulders at the
unfolding of a romance:
All
became clear at your front door.
You
threw your arms around me and we kissed.
We
held each other tight for seven years.
There
is also a lot to say about the failings of the collection, such as the choice
of the collections’ opening poem, the prosey nature of some poems and the lack
of image. On the whole Keegan presents us with a very mixed collection of good
to mediocre poetry but when he is good he is good.
Katherine Lockton is a young British poet, who lives in London and sometimes reviews for Eyewear.
Katherine Lockton is a young British poet, who lives in London and sometimes reviews for Eyewear.
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