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Alan Morrison is an intriguing young poet whose work
I've only recently come across. His poetry combines an interest in
non-conformist politics with an engagement in history and literary movements.
The online magazine he edits - The Recusant - is likely to shed some light on
such preoccupations, suggesting non-compliance with the prevailing order in
its modern meaning, while also indicating its origins in Catholic heterodoxy,
a lineage which explains the religious references and concerns in this
collection. That his writing is largely 'traditional' in its formal qualities
is perhaps to be expected, given such a background, and I'm entirely
unsurprised that he should find common ground with the left-wing poet Andy
Croft, whose defence of oppositional culture in the face of adversity and
'persecution' has been long-lived and exceptional.
There are sonnets and villanelles in this collection, alongside a variety of
looser verse forms, where the energy of Morrison's epic struggle within his
main themes of poverty, class, education and social exclusion is aided by a
wide vocabulary and a passionate intensity. There are also intriguing
ambiguities, such as his championing of an apparent genteel, shabby, down-at
heel bohemianism (in 'Raging Grains', for example) and his understandably
ambivalent commentary on the Bloomsbury Group ('Charlston Pharaohs'). You get
the feeling that here is a gentle soul, chastened by some of life's hard
lessons and wanting to make common cause with others in a similar
predicament. In this sense, his work harks back to the pre-Thatcher social
environment where some form of socialism or social transformation seemed
possible and where the likes of E.P. Thompson and Raymond Williams were given
their due.
In 'Rainbow Road', the mix of colourful description and angry rant is rounded
off by these telling lines:
, Diggers with whorled dreadlocks
uphold the
tracts of Winstanley,
and I, an
unsocial socialist,
thank God for
their ragged crop.
It's that mix of revelling in the power of belonging, of being within a
group, while at the same time feeling distanced and awkward with group
feeling. There's an ambivalence within this writing which seems to surface at
regular intervals but perhaps I'm simply projecting!
Sometimes, an inner-turmoil is conveyed with a vivid sweep of natural
imagery, part-Romantic but also reminiscent of the nature poetry of John
Clare:
Guests hurled blustery fists outside
And threw, with sweeps, the rain
That lashed
against the draughty glass
Of the sunken window pane;
I heard them
beckon me outside;
Their morbid song, lifting in pitch,
Led me from a
restive mood
To the turbid depths of a ditch;
('Where Banshees Brought Me')
The sequence entitled Swedish Suite, combines travelogue and
social commentary with an uplift which is unusual in this work and seems
likely to be related to the early intoxication of a love affair. There are
some lovely lines in this group of poems - 'Cathedrals of heady chardonnay
light' , from 'Tall thoughts in Gamla Stan - for Matilda', for example, and
there's a sense of philosophical lightness which is more Buddhist and for the
'here and now' than in the more prevailing, brooding writing elsewhere. Yet
in 'Hare' Morrison reconnects with the natural world in a manner which is
again reminiscent of John Clare and here the tone is both celebratory and
hard-nosed in its realism:
Spring-limbed
sprinter of Lepus
be born
fur-coated, lozenges open -
saccadic
ebons trapped
in
stark-staring ambers;
hind legs
bucked, sprung catapults.
No shelter
from nature's laissez faire;
no safety in
numbers, only in pairs,
or opt-out
solitaire;
no place to
rest save an ill-hid nest
or shallow
hollow. ...
This is a poetry which seems to be entirely devoid of the frenetic energies
and increasingly empty ironies of much post-modern writing and there's a
refreshing sense of engagement which is encouraging, especially in a young
writer. There's a political anger, which comes to the fore in certain poems,
'The Declarers', for example, and an empathy for artistic
outsiders and the down-and-out, which is reflected in 'his social
observation' poems and his common alliance with earlier radical groups - the
Diggers, Levellers, William Morris' circle etc. There's also variety of
subject and a cultural richness within his writing which is impressive in its
sweep. On the debit side, this
could lead to a sort of stubborn naivetŽ which becomes a fixed position and
leads to a cul-de-sac where repetition becomes the only option, the sort of
fate that I fear has befallen Tony Harrison, for example. There's a depth and
an energy to Morrison's writing though and there's a long way to go. The best
could yet be to come.
©
Steve Spence 2009
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