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Richard Thomas is a fresh young voice from Plymouth whose
work combines a surprisingly direct yet engaging take on the surreal with a
more romantic and passionate approach to his subject. In 'Flamingo', for
example, we are presented with a build-up of imagery which includes factual
information, sharp observation neatly given a skewed twist - the origin of
which is clearly related to the curious visual appearance of the bird, - and
a beautiful, terse lyricism which is both appealing and feels genuine, from
the heart. Thomas' work is a rare mix of the intellectual and the intuitive
and it's a real pleasure to read, or hear read, as he's a fine performer of
his poetry, also something of an unusual trait:
Flesh-coloured shrimp-eater,
wide-winged
wired bird,
raking the
dirt pedalling the earth,
knee-knobbled
beanpole legs,
knee being
ankle-joint,
É.
beak in the
ground like a compass,
dot-eyed
wading follower,
feather-liced
idoliser,
tall social
armpit sleeper,
delightful
eyeful not quite parrot,
ancient Roman
delicacy,
É..
Africa North
America
Central
America Europe
South America
Asia
lava-loving
ice-bird,
mud mounder
by mouthful
cunningly
undesirable,
thirty years
of male looking female,
thirty years
of female looking male,
many
accidental bisexual nights,
lethargy-enthused strawberry sunset
pinking the waters
forever.
(from
'Flamingo')
That 'pinking the waters forever' has such a wonderful resonance and manages
to avoid all the worst excesses of the laboured-over final line.
There's a clear sense of literary tradition in his work, whether that of the
20th century, as in the obvious 'surreal connection', or with an
earlier romantic mode of writing. In 'Good Reason to Die' for example,
there's a strong hint of an Elizabethan influence yet this is presented with
such a down-to-earth 'lack of flourish', which is both very funny and
strangely moving:
In an all
white sun I sleep
figureless,
moving closer to myself
to which the Star Sisters hit me up with;
'Wake from
that in which you lie!'
and so I wake
and groggily reply:
'But the sun
is going to die
so I shall
sleep and go out with it,
a loyal
ember, a promise I'll keep,
and then I
can come back as snow
and be divine
in my white flow'.
(from
'Good Reason to Die')
This is a poem which embraces the idea of 'mutability' without being remotely
melancholy or heavy, and its lyricism also has an almost upbeat, humorous,
throw-away quality ('groggily reply') which reminds me of Stevie Smith in a
less angsty mode. Richard Thomas wears his learning lightly and his poetry is
all the better for it.
There's a real mix of material in this very promising first collection - you
could say that there's a concern with the 'natural world' that is pervasive -
which also includes the unexpected and offbeat. Two poems in this category
are 'Bad Movie', which reminds me ever-so-slightly of Brian Patten's 'The
Projectionist's Nightmare', and 'Putting the Poem in Danger'. The latter is
one of those 'poems about a poem' poems which can go badly wrong if not
handled carefully yet this one reads like a dream and again, reminds me
slightly of Luke Kennard's work. Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a
'school' here:?
Last night
on
the patio
a student
was talking
about those who
have killed,
he then went on to say
he would play murder
like a
drinking game:
after every
killing,
he, the killer,
would
swallow another shot.
(from
'Putting the Poem in Danger')
My current favourite poem in The Strangest Thank You is 'Cezanne and His Critics' which reminds me of
how I felt about Cezanne in my twenties and makes me want to revisit the
paintings (I will, I will):
Ah, but
little did they know
that one
hundred years on
his hatted
card players
with white pipe would have gone
for one
hundred and sixty million,
and I can
hear Cezanne
rolling in
his grave with laughter,
yelling
'That'll show
the bastards'.
(from
'Cezanne and His Critics')
This is a splendid debut collection and I'm sure we'll be hearing more from
Richard Thomas in due course.
© Steve
Spence 2013
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