The back cover says "In their formal virtuosity, linguistic incandescence and imaginative intelligence, these poems are deeply affecting and often searing examinations of the world in which we're living. Ending with major pieces that traverse the waste and beauty of our time, Hawks and Doves is an unforgettable trip". Wow. A trip indeed. The acknowledgements mention Ciaron Carson, which comes as no surprise once you start reading.
- The 2nd poem's in rhyming pairs of lines.
- The 3rd poem's in 5 stanzas whose number of lines are 8/9/8/9/8. The 8-liner stanzas have a rhyme scheme of abababcc, loosely rhythmed. I can't see a pattern in the 9-liners.
- The 4th poem's a sestina.
- The 5th poem's "Saturday Morning", 18 6-lined stanzas (compare Stevens' "Sunday Morning"). It starts
The fart and snigger of sausages and free
range eggs, the beans of a coffee grinder
and light house music on a Fujifilm CD
blank out of mind the mortuary white
Variety continues throughout the book. There are some "long" poem (more than 2 pages). "Home and Away" repeats the same word (once with variation) on each of its 30 lines. "The Lad" is mostly a list of nicknames for "penis" using internal rhyme.
The lines-per-stanza count is rarely as low as 2 or even 4. Nor are there short lines. Consequently the eye's confronted with big blocks of text. At times the pages are as full as those of a typical novel, but one has to read this book more slowly than one would a novel. Take this for example.
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Her mum straightens the salt cellar with her bi-weekly cut and blow-dried autumn red-bomb- scare hair, the jabble and jibble of the kitchen glinting through the jade of her eye. She's zonked, and hears the cold pull of waters flowing beyond the valley, hills, the horizon, wondering what her husband might do and who to shelter if their daughter drops the bomb. (p.22) |
"bomb" is repeated, rather oddly and deliberately, and the first sentence would be re-written were it prose (you wouldn't straighten a salt cellar with hair). Or what about this?
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on their way to late night malls, the news, convenience drive-throughs - the till ka-chinging demographic, who'd like to cycle more in the future, who drive mile to recycle and buy organic, passing value-pack fish fingers purchased for scuzzed children, whose eyes linger on the shelf-bright colours, leaving by flexi-bus for estates on the outskirts, complexes of window dust beyond the CCTV zones (p.27) |
It's pair-wise rhyme, but is the content supposed to be so clichéd? Maybe. The next example illustrates a switch in style (axxa rhyme-scheme, but given the variable line-lengths, those rhymes may not be noticed by the ear).
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the table with hot boxty bread. She sucks an orange finger. His breeks are ripped to flitterjigs as he snuffles his neb and spies and stoppled eaves of her breasts, before gobbing a pure emerald yinger (p.70) |
And to conclude, here the discursive start of the final poem, "Laganside"
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I cannot call back the time, lasso the millions of minutes by the scruff of their scrawny wee seconds, or knock out the lost years, bop the back of their heads and bale them into a getaway van that will welly it to a warehouse where time is put right by a crack team of agents (p.73) |
Other reviews
- Peter McDonald (Tower Poetry)
- Stephen Lackaye (Edinburgh Review)
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