Mel Gibson is a tree


hydrodaktulo psychic harmonica, Matt Merrett
(111pp, £9.00 Nine Arches Press)


There is something of Seamus Heaney and Norman MacCaig in the first lines of the Matt Merrett's first poem:

                       Pens pause one last time
                       above the gaping permafrost
                       of the page

                       while outside
                       swifts are scribbling furiously
                       upon the thinning haze

And the first impression is that of unoriginality:

                      the summer is swaying us
                      with the slow, emphatic argument
                      of the trees.

                      One chance, you get at this
                     
he is telling us from the front
                      One chance.

Likening a tree to Mel Gibson might be Hollywood but here it looks more a pastiche of Bollywood - or am I being too cruel.

In the blurb at the back of this book it says: 'These are poems that take a distinctive route through landscapes rich with legend and wildlife, finding elegies written in the night sky on the way home from the pub, or quite epics raging in the pages of memories and neglected histories..
.'

Turns, looks to the sunset aaaaaannnnd CUT!

I wonder if Nine Arches would be interested in my book with only page numbers in it? Ya think! Or the one with one dot in the middle of three hundred pages. Now that's poetry!

        © James McLaughlin 2011