Maria
Taylor reviews
She Inserts the Key
by Marianne Burton
In her
debut collection, She Inserts the Key,
Marianne Burton explores an extensive range of theme and subject matter, from the
urbane to the surreal. Despite the varied content her style rarely wavers from
writing which is thoughtfully constructed. Elizabeth Jennings once wrote ‘only
one thing must be cast out and that is the vague,’ and Burton’s poems are often
full of concrete images and experiences, of things which can be pinned down and
described – such as a sparrowhawk caught
by thorns while pursuing its prey ‘pinned wide open for our inspection’:
For
fifteen seconds it lay crucified –
wings
museum-fixed, spread eagle by thorns –
as we
watched our exhibit twist against
its
pivot, its spine pull against the pinioning
The book features a series of poems appearing under a re-occuring title
of ‘Meditations on the Hours.’ These are interspersed throughout the book and
they allow the collection to cohere very well.
Not only do Burton’s poems take us around the clock but they also take
us on a journey of experience. They show us life in its many different aspects,
from the early morning regrets of ‘lovers lying in strange beds,’ to mothers
giving night-feeds to babies described as ‘warm-lipped fishes,’ and to gangster
wannabees stealing from parked cars in the afternoon.
One of the most striking features in Burton’s work is her eye for the
extraordinary. In one of the earlier
poems in the book, ‘The Woman Who Turned to Soap,’ Burton gives a voice to a deceased
woman. The subject of this poem is a woman who bemoaned her obesity in life,
but who in death cherishes her decomposing and therefore thinning frame. Death
offers a new found independence from the demands of existence: ‘All my life I
was dutiful.’ She now has an opportunity to escape and meld with nature, to experience ‘fusion with
the sea’ and ‘to lick clean the toes of pink-footed petrels.’ The saponification
of the body after death may sound fairly disturbing and perhaps not the most
obvious subject matter for a poem, but Burton manages to secure a measured and
even tone that makes decomposition a more elegant process:
I shall
choose my own colouring,
a
delicate raspeberry ripple, sucrose red,
and my
own perfume, from orris and anise
What I
like about this is the flavouring and perfume set against the background of
death and rot. It’s not the ‘surprise’ aspect that appeals, more the luxuriance
of the imagery which satisfies. 'Luxurious’ is probably a good adjective for Burton’s style, especially
in terms of how she applies a sense of luxury to mundane situations and
characters. Burton’s poems make the best out of normality. A man may be
ordinary, but his handwriting may suggest exquisite things, as is shown in ‘For
a Plain Man’: ‘Your letters clasp hands to dance galliards / throw each other
through the air…’ Even ‘plain’ men can
harbor secretive and delicious ambitions revealed through ‘rococo scripts’ and a
hidden taste for the decadent to ‘spite’ his own school teachers. The reality
is that something of the overlooked,
‘tight-lipped’ child who wears ‘cheap clothes’ still persists into adulthood,
haunting the grown man who is now ‘important.’ These insights into personal
insecurity stay with the reader. Here the images are powerful and memorable
enough to make a mark.
Burton also explores the need for independence and how individuals react
against daily drudgery. She reflects on work and routine and her characters
often seek escapism. The tone is sometimes lighter than expected and humorous:
‘By 2 o’clock evolution is in decline / By 3:30pm we resemble the sloth’ (‘Noon:
Liverpool Street: The Bank of Desks’). Elsewhere a naked man irons in Camden,
snatching a few quiet moments before his working day begins. The poet becomes
the voyeur, noticing how his hands move as if he ‘were making love’ to ‘an
unseen body. ’ Burton makes even mundane actions seem more alluring.
The poems possess a filmic appeal which makes them feel as if they are
being directed and the images are carefully controlled:
Street lights and little moon. Our shoes
Echo on the cobbles as old Lille sleeps.
Ducks ruffle on the steps by the city pond.
(1am: Lille; Night Walk with Falling Television)
The
atmosphere which has been studiously established is then violently broken. A television, ‘eighties weight,’ is thrown out
of a window and ensuing wreckage showers the walkers’ path in ‘glass powder’
and ‘plastic splinters.’ A reader can
almost hear the crash on the cobbles.
She Inserts the Key is an
impressive first collection. I had come across many of the poems previously in
various publications and I didn’t expect to be disappointed. I will be very
interested to see where Burton goes next in her poetry. Midway through the
collection I noticed some of the poems seemed a little more vulnerable than
their more confident predecessors and focused on personal relationships between
mothers and daughters. I liked this varied
range of experience throughout the book. Burton is a strong poet who
articulates and explores the vagaries of existence in a way which makes us
recognise something in ourselves.
Maria Taylor lives in Leicestershire and is
Cypriot in origin. Her poetry has been published in a variety of publications
including ‘The Rialto,’ ‘Iota,’ ‘Agenda’ and ‘The North.’ Her first collection Melanchrini was published by Nine Arches
Press and has been shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, 2013.
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