Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I can see that U. A. Fanthorpe is a confident poet with an adroit command of language and a sure way of handling technique. And I can understand that she seems to deal with matters of great concern. The long sequence which gives her book its title aims to be a sort of “state of the nation” address (I almost wrote “sermon”), a warning from the wise poet about lapsing into extreme nationalism and other attitudes likely to lead to bigotry and even atrocities. Although the poems range around England, with references to Richard III and the like, they also bring in the fate of the gypsies in Nazi death camps and the events at Dresden and Hiroshima. What bothers me about poetry like this is that I’m never sure if it adds anything of value to what is already in the history books. I’m not suggesting that poets shouldn’t write historical poems and make political comments, simply saying that they need to either produce work with some striking poetic qualities or say something original. I don’t think Fanthorpe does. “Nothing happens in isolation,” she says, but life taught me that a long time ago and I also read it in Karl Marx.

     But the sequence is only part of the book and elsewhere Fanthorpe works closer to home and is much more successful. There’s a poem called ‘Against Speech’, which if it tends to travel a predictable route at least does it with some flair:

O for a tongue-tied muse to celebrate
The steadfast dumbness of dissidents under
                                                           torture,
The hangdog faces of children who won’t
                                                        perform,
Quakers, clever as fish in a soundless
                                                     dimension,
Lovers in crowded trains.

I also enjoyed the poem about Guido Morris, the bohemian printer who was a fixture on the St Ives scene for some years but eventually failed (the usual bohemian problems of drink and no head for business) and ended his days working for London Underground. Fanthorpe records all this and exemplifies the old saying, “give flowers to the rebels failed”, in her poem. And there’s a warm poem about an old lady and a darker one about the destruction of houses to make way for more cars. There are also, it has to be said, some poems which could easily have been omitted, for example another dull exercise about creative writing courses and a coy one about cats.

     I couldn’t get too excited about this book, though little in it falls below a certain level of intelligence. But it struck me as essentially middle-brow in its ambitions. It was like a conversation with a nice, civilised English person. Pleasant enough but full of platitudes.