Judy Gahagan
Review
No Can Do, Julie O’Callaghan, Bloodaxe £7.95
Whether her poems are slender tributes to the world of courtly Japan, to urban moments in America to the final days of her father, Julie O’Callaghan never lets her guard slip. Her tone is brisk and witty, the pitch low; she gives herself no license and dwells on nothing. This intrinsic and instinctive kind of discipline in a poet is certainly a gift. In restricting herself to the simplicity of reporting the actualities of moment they ring clear for themselves un-obscured by the poet’s presence.
it could ruin
a person’s outlook
on a jaunty
August morning
to wake up and hear
the Death March on WFMT
and then see
your ghostly bald father
facing the music
at the table
attempting to eat
a bowl of Cheerios
From ‘Sketches for an Elegy’
Holy cow!
You should see that place.
Children have bulletproof backpacks
for their schoolbooks.
People are four feet around.
Men wear skirts, women Power dress.
From ‘Not A Nice Place’
Okay. So the aim is perfect, the speed and propulsion exactly calibrated. No dwelling, no redundancy, nothing too high-pitched or garrulous. However impressed, though, I find myself not tempted to dwell or mull as much as I want to with poetry.
Page(s) 66
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