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Recent reviews IÕve come across of The ButcherÕs Hands have been far less enthusiastic about the book
than The Independent reviewer quoted on the jacket with: ÔEach of these
poems is startling and original. They are enigmatic, unpredictable: reach the
end of the piece, and you need to re-read it immediately.Õ This is a world
away from ÔcompetentÕ, which seems to be the best Alan Dent can say, or
William OxleyÕs Ôa volume depressing in every wayÕ and Andrew NeilsonÕs
conclusion that the collection Ôleft me coldÕ.
Why such a difference? In general it may be that the national press and the
poetry magazines are looking for different things. ÔHer scary, unsettling
voice seems unexpected in poetryÕ comments The Times on the jacket blurb Ð and thatÕs exactly what
makes good copy for non-poetry readers, yet that same material is Ômorbid and
pathologicalÕ for Oxley. The national press reviews were of a pamphlet-sized collection
(which is subsumed in this book). Perhaps a small dose of work which is
Ôintense and even at times grotesqueÕ (the jacket blurb again) is novel,
whereas a whole bookful wearies?
More particularly, there is agreement about the subject matter that Smith
tackles: unsettling / disturbing / weird / loveless / bloody, often
violentÉIÕve taken adjectives from both camps here. Smith writes in the voice
of an obsessive who is fixated on the bellies of pregnant women, in the voice
of an executioner, in that of a werewolf. Imaginative? Or unreal and not
especially interesting since their voices are the poetÕs voice, the same
voice of the rest of the book, the voice going for the sinister undercurrent
at every turn?
We expect to dwell on Ôthe fine musculature of the throatÕ with the
executioner or on a neck that Ôtastes of vanilla under my tongueÕ with the
werewolf, but I think that we may be already saturated with the violent turn
each piece is going to take by the time we come to a poem where it would otherwise
be both surprising and effective. Smith writes in the motherÕs voice of a
game of ÔMonopolyÕ her son is winning
Almost
bankrupt and recently released from jail,
she owes her
ten year-old
four hundred
quid in rent
and deftly mixes board game and capitalism. I think she just about gets away
with the commentary here:
Éthey could
come to some arrangement
over her
arrears. She thinks how
this is what
capitalism does to children,
Ð brutalises
them, makes them worship
five hundred
pound notes, little red boxes,
encourages
them to sniff out the weak,
and charge
them exorbitant rent
The mother watches her sonÕs Ôfingers fatten on his stashÕ, the small
domestic moment cut open to reveal a vicious undercurrent. But with so many
pieces mining this seam, ÔMonopolyÕ is much less striking than it would be in
another context.
The same is true of ÔBreatheÕ. Here is a poem of experience rather than
invention, one of a small number of more grounded poems which touch on
childbearing/rearing. ÔYou fucking breathe, smug bitch. I breathe enough to
last / a lifetime, a lung-time of blue breathÉÕ ItÕs a poem of visceral
power, or would be if we hadnÕt already had so much viscera already. You can
have too much of a good thing.
I wonder too whether a thread of similarity in the style of writing, not just
the approach to the subject, isnÕt what made Alan Dent say that ÔYou wonÕt
find anything here that isnÕt replicated in the work of dozens of
contemporary poetsÕ. I was surprised that the writing didnÕt surprise me:
often I sensed the movement in the poem, particularly the line break, before
I got there. There seem to be many occasions when a verb ended the line Ð
okay, this gets you some pacey writing when you really need it, but felt
formulaic in ÔWondersÕ:
twenty-seven
rescued freaks. Prodded
by ignorant
children, theyÕve proffered
limbs and
faces, caused women to faint.
I can flick though: there are many examples. In fact, thereÕs a lot of it
about at the moment. Why donÕt the words of a unit of sense sit on a line
together more often than not? So that variations on this are all the more
effective, and to a particular purpose?
What these reviews and the jacket blurb havenÕt said is that so much of the
violence Smith writes of is directed at women. And hereÕs her strength: she
can face it. When her own experience is brought into play as well, she is
capable of strong writing. With an increasing range of subjects, ideas and
styles as her writing develops, those strong poems will stand out for what
they really are.
The ButcherÕs Hands is reviewed
by Andrew Neilson in Magma 28,
Spring 2004, by William Oxley in Orbis, 128 Spring 2004, and Alan Dent in The
Penniless Press, 18 Autumn 2003.
©
Jane Routh 2004
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