Veering heartfelt humanity: review
Familiar Strangers: New and Selected Poems 1960-2004 by Brendan Kennelly
Familiar Strangers: New and Selected Poems 1960-2004 by Brendan Kennelly, 490pp, £12.00, Bloodaxe
Well worth acquainting yourself with: entertaining, spell-binding at times, profound, earthy, spiritual too. Kennelly has arranged this substantial collection himself, in what seem like clearly-defined, themed sections; all are interlocking facets of his extraordinarily accessible voice. In his preface, he celebrates ‘the way leading to the leap of light and kinship’ - a leap which figures large in Kennelly’s writing. There is a lightness in his handling of subjects, even those which may initially seem far too heavy for lyrical poetry (Cromwell, the endemic violence and degradation of Irish lives and history) but this lightness draws the reader in and convinces by its subtlety; there is also a sense of light being shone - spiritual light sometimes, very human feelings at other times. Not a wry twist at the end of each verse so much as an instinctive lifting and opening up of mood: ‘I think it’s [poetry] whatever/lifts the moon off my back’ (‘Whatever’).
I have found familiar friends among the poems here: the much anthologised ‘Poem from a three year old’; many of the sharply unsettling poems from the ‘Book of Judas‘, but also, new to me, sad, strange sequences such as ‘A girl’, a dangerously open voice vulnerable to violence, but also to the transfiguring power of self-emptying:
The cup contains nothing.
Place it in the sun
It fills with sunlight
And is empty as a graveyard bone
(‘emptiness‘)
Then there is the central ‘The Man Made of Rain’; a beautiful, enigmatic sequence based on his visionary experiences after major heart surgery. The mysterious raining man is mentor, guardian angel, poetic symbol, inner self, the ultimate familiar stranger.
I looked into his crying eyes, how can
the rain be crying?
It is. Rain sheds itself, sheds tears as well,
the tears are running down his face
yet do not fall to earth.
This helps me to talk, he said.
This long sequence exploring the edges of existence and perception is deeply spiritual, evoking a physical flooding and flowing which is somehow contained and become healing. It reminds me of the blood pouring across Christ’s brow in the ‘Showings’ of Julian of Norwich, blood which seems endless, yet vanishes before falling, and presages words of hope. Like Julian‘s text, the ‘Man..’ is a spiralling narrative of mixed joy and sorrow, received in extremis, but written reflectively: in both, too, there is an hallucinatory entering into the torn body and a touching of the apparently intangible. It’s a wonderful, haunting read.
In the expansive world of Kennelly’s poetry, however, visionaries and saints coexist with grand and petty sinners. This book is a collection of voices, and he delights in exposing us to voices of the unusual, the forbidden even, as well as the apparently mundane. His dexterous use of sonnet form provides one sturdy vehicle for these voices; other poems stream down the page; still others are tiny, crystalline gems. Within each piece is the pulse of genuine humanity. ‘Look into me, hear me./ I am all you have to say’ (‘Heart‘). I absolutely recommend taking this advice to heart.
Well worth acquainting yourself with: entertaining, spell-binding at times, profound, earthy, spiritual too. Kennelly has arranged this substantial collection himself, in what seem like clearly-defined, themed sections; all are interlocking facets of his extraordinarily accessible voice. In his preface, he celebrates ‘the way leading to the leap of light and kinship’ - a leap which figures large in Kennelly’s writing. There is a lightness in his handling of subjects, even those which may initially seem far too heavy for lyrical poetry (Cromwell, the endemic violence and degradation of Irish lives and history) but this lightness draws the reader in and convinces by its subtlety; there is also a sense of light being shone - spiritual light sometimes, very human feelings at other times. Not a wry twist at the end of each verse so much as an instinctive lifting and opening up of mood: ‘I think it’s [poetry] whatever/lifts the moon off my back’ (‘Whatever’).
I have found familiar friends among the poems here: the much anthologised ‘Poem from a three year old’; many of the sharply unsettling poems from the ‘Book of Judas‘, but also, new to me, sad, strange sequences such as ‘A girl’, a dangerously open voice vulnerable to violence, but also to the transfiguring power of self-emptying:
The cup contains nothing.
Place it in the sun
It fills with sunlight
And is empty as a graveyard bone
(‘emptiness‘)
Then there is the central ‘The Man Made of Rain’; a beautiful, enigmatic sequence based on his visionary experiences after major heart surgery. The mysterious raining man is mentor, guardian angel, poetic symbol, inner self, the ultimate familiar stranger.
I looked into his crying eyes, how can
the rain be crying?
It is. Rain sheds itself, sheds tears as well,
the tears are running down his face
yet do not fall to earth.
This helps me to talk, he said.
This long sequence exploring the edges of existence and perception is deeply spiritual, evoking a physical flooding and flowing which is somehow contained and become healing. It reminds me of the blood pouring across Christ’s brow in the ‘Showings’ of Julian of Norwich, blood which seems endless, yet vanishes before falling, and presages words of hope. Like Julian‘s text, the ‘Man..’ is a spiralling narrative of mixed joy and sorrow, received in extremis, but written reflectively: in both, too, there is an hallucinatory entering into the torn body and a touching of the apparently intangible. It’s a wonderful, haunting read.
In the expansive world of Kennelly’s poetry, however, visionaries and saints coexist with grand and petty sinners. This book is a collection of voices, and he delights in exposing us to voices of the unusual, the forbidden even, as well as the apparently mundane. His dexterous use of sonnet form provides one sturdy vehicle for these voices; other poems stream down the page; still others are tiny, crystalline gems. Within each piece is the pulse of genuine humanity. ‘Look into me, hear me./ I am all you have to say’ (‘Heart‘). I absolutely recommend taking this advice to heart.
Page(s) 42-43
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The