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

MISTRESS by Alan Marshfield, Anvil Press Poetry, 69 King George Street,
               London SE10, 30p.

NIGHT BIRD by Richard Austin, Bettiscombe Press, Bettiscombe, Bridport,
               Dorset.

BRINGING RAIN FROM CYPRUS by John Rice, The Aten Press, 93 Biggins
               Wood Road, Cheriton, Folkestone, Kent, 25p.

There are many views as to the nature, function, and purpose of poetry; to some it is a revelatory art-form, intended for distribution, that others may read it and achieve enlightenment: to some it is a means of ‘self-expression”, a kind of well-defined therapeutic ritual, in which, or through which, a man says “Look at me, here I am”, in hopes that, as a side effect, the reader will discover himself; a third group consider poetry a historical study — a continuing, developing organism, or series of parallel organisms, one labelled ‘romantic’, another ‘new wave’ and so on, rather like a collection of very long worms, constantly being broken, and constantly growing new heads and tails; then there are those who consider it rather as they would a secret garden — a thing separated from the outside world, which, in isolation is to be tended and made perfect, and all its elements broken down and recycled, that it might remain an eternal and immutable perfection, a closed system that might be observed but not altered.

     As a consequence of this variety of possibilities, the business of criticism must rest on the flimsy framework of the critic’s viewpoint, his taste, and the apparent honesty of the poetry concerned.

     But down to cases: of the three booklets, I found the Marshfield the most accomplished, and the most interesting. Despite being a professional teacher of English. Marshfield avoids the obvious pitfalls. His elaborate, elegant and precise language is not the usual exhibition of verbal virtuosity that English-teacher/poets often use to disguise their inadequate ‘poetical’ musings. Instead it is an integral part of his poems, an exquisite carriage for profound and perceptive thought. ‘Mistress’ comprises three long poems. One (‘Love Story’), in seven sections, is a long look at the rugged landscape of love. It is not sentimental’, but it displays the honest sentiment of reality. Of the three poems, it is the least obscure, but the remaining two will amply repay the more careful reading they require. The first section of ‘Ta-Hes Visits Her Tomb’ adequately displays the vitality and timeless quality of Marshfield’s elegant verbalization:

Let us go to the necropolis
for a good read. Qaha is graining
The last chunk for my mausoleum.
Soon, children, he will be inserting
the east slab on which my life will go.
Though that won’t be till I go. I’ll not
have those coarse masons take their rubbings
of my scratch for the scribes, yet. Varnish
those eyes with oil, my scrawny liebchen.
That sand has more disaster in it
Than all the Seth of Lower Egypt.

     Richard Austin also uses the English language elegantly in places, and with vitality in places, but neither quality is all-pervading in his work and there are times when neither is present. His imagery ranges from the bizarre —

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . night
in the condemned cell of my heart rattles its chains

— to the hopelessly commonplace —

A myth, like Helen’s
Wondrous hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

— but in the main it is apt, and expresses quite precise concepts. These concepts however are rather too self-consciously ‘poetically’ reasonable. Without the bouillabaisse of metaphor, the whole book is mere water. When Austin states a straightforward proposition. it is often trite and commonplace — a mere conceit —                                                      

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . one believes
in the impossible; for all
other beliefs are in vain.

or

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . imperfect
as the ultimately beautiful
must be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

— so at many points, one must decide whether the metaphor is the message, contains the message, or merely avoids the tiresome business of creating a message. But don’t get me wrong; it’s worth reading (though it took me some while to realize this), even if only as a stimulus to one’s own thought.

     I’m not so sure one could say the same about John Rice’s “Bringing Rain From Cyprus”. I didn’t really like this booklet. I found it somehow un-authentic. Even those experiences of Cyprus that he most obviously knew and remembered, lost something in the telling. There was too much self-conscious ‘poetry’ in them. They were told by someone too self-consciously a ‘poet’. They smacked of the writings of the self-ordained bishops of non-existent churches, of the professors of self-founded colleges. There are a lot of sonorous phrases here, phrases that roll easily off the tongue, but, since they seem never to lead to any significant conclusion, I am afraid they roll off the mind, too. An overworked metaphor in ‘Private Daily Battles’:

the reality of your departure
thrust the smooth bayonet into the pit
of my stomach . . . . . . . . . .

— which might conceivably have contained a measure of irony, pathos, even of wit, in fact contains only words — which is just about all the collection contains.