Veering towards the owl: review
Mischief Night by Roddy Lumsden
Mischief Night by Roddy Lumsden, 176pp, £8.95, Bloodaxe
Here’s a poem. It’s called ‘Us’.
The usual entertainments. The brazen tune
of sticks along a fence. The silt of hunger.
Ablution’s waltzes; the neat bolt well-oiled
on the door-back. A collie pup moping
on the smell of onion gravy. The bell-pull
lurching as we dip into the corner shop
for cheddar cheese or toffees or green soap.
Solid stuff. Our pith and quintessence.
The saga of our neighbour’s leaning shed.
A tinfoil square on the grill. Adrift, a pool
of coppers in an ashet. Us. A red rosette
on a jelly jar. Milk snuffling in a pan.
The wooden rule suspended on a nail.
The sewing tin. Tinned salmon. Those who can.
Here’s another one. This is ‘An Older Woman’.
Mid-1990s, Scotland, dead of winter
And more than old enough to be my mother.
She hailed a taxi in the city centre,
Dropped me off a hundred yards before her
And we were naked fifteen minutes later;
A Brookes & Simmons dress, her bra and knickers
Were delicate and in contrasting colours.
I didn’t stop to think if there were others,
Responded prompt and proudly to her orders.
And now I wish to speak to celebrate her
Although I don’t know anything about her
Except the spray of freckles on her shoulders
And that she said the world revolved around her.
I know exactly what to do without her.
Now, both these poems have merits. I quite like the first one. It’s not complicated, but it’s made in an interesting enough way, and holds the intrusively personal at enough of an arm’s length to stop it far short of cloying or sentimental. It employs a knowledge of the list poem to pretty good effect, and has cool words and combinations of words in it. In a nutshell, I’ve read better poems but I quite liked reading this one.
The second poem may be fiction and irony hand in hand, or it may be autobiographically true. I don’t care. It’s superficially conversational in ordinary contemporary British poetry fashion, which usually means, as in this case, knowingly boring and banal. The poem also rhymes in a modern modish kind of way. It’s somewhat more accessible than the first, but to my mind much less of a pleasure to read. It ends horribly. I’ve read worse poems but don’t like this one much.
However, what fascinates me, beyond any consideration of their merits or lack of them, is that both poems were written by Roddy Lumsden. They are in his book Mischief Night. I hated most of this book. Well, when I say ‘hate’, I mean ‘didn’t care for much’. In my poetry world, that’s what ‘hate’ means sometimes. Here, there are poems that do what the second poem here does, and there are poems, for example, about things like owls and they contain lines of poetry like ‘these pellets laced with a trinkum of mouse-spines / and the black jeel eyes of creeping things’, and neither ‘trinkum’ nor ‘jeel’ are in my Chambers dictionary, although they may be Scottish words, because the poet is Scottish and often lets you know it. These words may be in my wholehearted full Oxford thing, but I can’t be bothered to drag it out from under other things to look. But mainly the poet writes poems veering towards the owl, and towards the older woman. They aren’t often as good as ‘Us’. Which I think is a pity. I’m still surprised how the same bloke can write these different poems. I think it raises all sorts of questions, and I’m going to go away and think about what they might be.
Here’s a poem. It’s called ‘Us’.
The usual entertainments. The brazen tune
of sticks along a fence. The silt of hunger.
Ablution’s waltzes; the neat bolt well-oiled
on the door-back. A collie pup moping
on the smell of onion gravy. The bell-pull
lurching as we dip into the corner shop
for cheddar cheese or toffees or green soap.
Solid stuff. Our pith and quintessence.
The saga of our neighbour’s leaning shed.
A tinfoil square on the grill. Adrift, a pool
of coppers in an ashet. Us. A red rosette
on a jelly jar. Milk snuffling in a pan.
The wooden rule suspended on a nail.
The sewing tin. Tinned salmon. Those who can.
Here’s another one. This is ‘An Older Woman’.
Mid-1990s, Scotland, dead of winter
And more than old enough to be my mother.
She hailed a taxi in the city centre,
Dropped me off a hundred yards before her
And we were naked fifteen minutes later;
A Brookes & Simmons dress, her bra and knickers
Were delicate and in contrasting colours.
I didn’t stop to think if there were others,
Responded prompt and proudly to her orders.
And now I wish to speak to celebrate her
Although I don’t know anything about her
Except the spray of freckles on her shoulders
And that she said the world revolved around her.
I know exactly what to do without her.
Now, both these poems have merits. I quite like the first one. It’s not complicated, but it’s made in an interesting enough way, and holds the intrusively personal at enough of an arm’s length to stop it far short of cloying or sentimental. It employs a knowledge of the list poem to pretty good effect, and has cool words and combinations of words in it. In a nutshell, I’ve read better poems but I quite liked reading this one.
The second poem may be fiction and irony hand in hand, or it may be autobiographically true. I don’t care. It’s superficially conversational in ordinary contemporary British poetry fashion, which usually means, as in this case, knowingly boring and banal. The poem also rhymes in a modern modish kind of way. It’s somewhat more accessible than the first, but to my mind much less of a pleasure to read. It ends horribly. I’ve read worse poems but don’t like this one much.
However, what fascinates me, beyond any consideration of their merits or lack of them, is that both poems were written by Roddy Lumsden. They are in his book Mischief Night. I hated most of this book. Well, when I say ‘hate’, I mean ‘didn’t care for much’. In my poetry world, that’s what ‘hate’ means sometimes. Here, there are poems that do what the second poem here does, and there are poems, for example, about things like owls and they contain lines of poetry like ‘these pellets laced with a trinkum of mouse-spines / and the black jeel eyes of creeping things’, and neither ‘trinkum’ nor ‘jeel’ are in my Chambers dictionary, although they may be Scottish words, because the poet is Scottish and often lets you know it. These words may be in my wholehearted full Oxford thing, but I can’t be bothered to drag it out from under other things to look. But mainly the poet writes poems veering towards the owl, and towards the older woman. They aren’t often as good as ‘Us’. Which I think is a pity. I’m still surprised how the same bloke can write these different poems. I think it raises all sorts of questions, and I’m going to go away and think about what they might be.
Page(s) 41-42
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