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Oh this is good stuff:
Weasel
So Weasel, it has come to this;
to your thighs like tall glasses of milk,
your biscuit hair,
eyes that are like any kind of deep water.
It has come to those coiled, snaking guts
we had when we were younger still -
those balled-up sock guts of and afternoon
stolen back from college.
It has come to the spastic, ticking urge
rising through skin at the simplest
repositioning of your weasel hips,
or the one in twenty-seven kisses
I might land about your mouth,
of the right temperature and diction.
Was I even hungry once for eating?
Were you ever not the end of all fast?
The reason why I included the whole poem here is simply because to do other
would be wrong. For a twenty-six-year-old poet this is an incredible piece of
work - and it's observations are - what's that word - kwoliti. I love this Weasel's biscuit hair that you might
feel obliged to eat; and those eyes like a 'kind of deep water'. The poet
does not mention the colour of the Weasel's eyes but lets your imagination
make it's own mind up - if you know what I mean. And I love the line about
the 'twenty seven kisses I might land about your mouth.' Obviously the
personification of this weasel tells us that we are talking about life or
relationships - and although the animal personification is a recurring theme
in English literature, here there is a definite fresh input to this intertextuality.
And the animal features in many of Jack Underwood's poems: And this is a
great poem:
Your Horse
has arrived and is bending
himself into the room,
refolding his legs, I knuckle his nose,
which
reminds me of the arm of a chair.
This line ' I knuckle his nose/ which reminds me of the arm of a chair.' Is
the best line of poetry I've read in a long time. This is an incredible
observation: to compare the tension of texture on a horse's nose to that of
doing the same to say a leather sofa is exquisite and delicate. It's these
tiny microscopic details that make the great poet. And of all of Faber's new
poet's, New Poets 4 is for me the best. Jack goes on to
describe his horse in more detail:
I show him to the bathroom
and he is embarrassed. Next he is hoofing
through your photo album.
By now a mantra has begun in my
head ' two legs good four legs bad...' I never did get over Boxer's treatment
in Animal Farm. How the loyal hard
working Boxer -symbol of the worker, is down trodden and eventually sent to
the bone factory (and in today's political climate this same horse might just
be ready for another trip to the glue factory). And the simple mention of a horse anywhere in
literature tends to arouse primeval sympathies. And perhaps in these poems
the influence of fellow Glaswegian Edwin Morgan, with the old blind man taken
to the toilet in the 'Snack Bar' can be seen.
Another exceptional poem in 'Brother Hen' (Can you detect a theme?):
Has built a new coop
high as himself, on dog-proof stilts
is worm-rich earth. He reaches his long arm
through the chicken door, explores,
finger-tipping for egg warm shapes /
I tell my Brother Hen I have a system
for the soft-boiled, about my trick with salt
under the lid,
More detail: I have a
system for the soft-boiled, about my trick with the salt under the lid.
I can taste that salt on the underside of the lid see it evaporating into the
boiling water and doing it's magic. Detail, detail, detail I can't get enough
of the magnifying glass; keep yir global warming and yir T in the park
dimensions - get the glass out and see see see.
Other poems of note in this work are 'Theology' on page two, 'Wilder beast'
on page fourteen - with it's 'swinging red dick' and 'Toad' on page sixteen.
But to have five exceptional poems in any book of poetry is good going; and
to have five in a mere seventeen pages is value for money, and I didn't mind
paying for this pamphlet. We need to get used to paying more for this art
form, which is still heavily subsidised; and I give thanks to the lottery and
the Arts Council for their continued investment. Yi never know one day we
might even make poetry sexy. I can see it just need the right marketing and
Faber are doing an excellent job here. Keep it up Faber.
© James McLaughlin 2010
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