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

The Man Who Tried to Hug Clouds by Jim Bennett,
bluechrome publishing, an imprint of KMS Ltd, PO Box 109, Portishead, Bristol, BS20 7ZJ www.bluechrome.co.uk ISBN 1-904781-31-4, A5 pbck 162pp £7.99

Jim Bennett is from the Liverpool area, consequently in this book many of the poems are set in, or are about Liverpool. Bennett's poetry is in keeping with many of the other things that have emerged from Liverpool over the years (musicians, footballers, comedians, other poets etc.) in that the good are very good, but the rest is average or below, over-rated and forgettable. The title poem and its codicil, 'The man who hugged clouds' show imagination and flair. The opening poem's

     his cloud-love often brought him home
     wet, frozen and happy
     from a wing-walk afternoon

is confirmed by the closing poem's

     he was the man who hugged them
     and he loved it
     rolled in the sublime wetness

The other good poems are those concerning Jane, the repeated 'You'll die you arsehole' becomes quite poignant when we learn that it is Jane who died, taking her own life. Imagination and a certain amount of ironic humour are evident in 'Allen Ginsberg's typewriter' and 'being Bukowski'. Where Bennett begins to lose the plot is with the poems such as 'a poetry reading'. We do not need to be told that a poetry reading is a place where poets read their work to other poets waiting to read their work 'satnd( stand next to me) and "what is seen' are the sort of dire scribblings that back in the late sixties even my progressive fifth-form English teacher would have discarded as rubbish. These, and a few other lazy poems, would have improved the collection by their omission.

   Attached to this book was a note explaining that this was a review copy that might contain errors and formatting that would not appear in the production run. In the formatting front bluechrome need to get rid of the untidy scrawl of a font used for the poem titles, it just makes the book look messy. Certainly there are one or two errors. I hope 'like canopies served to be enjoyed' is not an error as it is so much more interesting than 'like canapés served to be enjoyed'.