Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature #10/thyla10f-pibook
AUSTRALIAN POETRY BOOK REVIEWS
Leaving The Mickey by Patricia Irvine
(Friendly Street Poets/ Wakefield Press, Kent Town, SA, Australia, 2004, ISBN: 1-86254-635-5, $19.95)
|
Leaving the Mickey is aptly titled. Author Patricia Irvine has pulled together a series of poetry which is clever and humorous in an Ogden Nash kind of way. The cutely rhyming poems trip off the tongue and would make for excellent oral readings, or perhaps as song lyrics, accompanied by music to tease out the otherwise limited nuances. The first poem in the book, "Catholic Girls' Skipping Song 1959" sets the tone which is to follow: "Pellegrini,/ jellybeanie./Mortal sin's a/brief bikini./Sugar Stations/of the Cross./St Therese and fairy floss." |
The book is divided into three sections, the first of which "Black Box," deals with reflections on moments past. As the title suggests, these are reconstructions of difficult periods, episodes, moments, and appear as snapshots in time.
Most of them are more clever than moving; coldly and wryly parodying a Catholic upbringing, or even struggling to re-gain a life after the death of a husband as in "Widow's Peak": "The doorbell. Goody Twosuits! Questing Mormons!/Lanky young Elders! Bet they're basketballers./Callers, welcome. Come into my parlour./Mount my ladder, push my starter, probe/that hard-to-get-at crevice." (11). Irvine's upper lip remains stiff, firmly fixed in a Mona Lisa smile. While Irvine successfully keeps self-pity and pain at bay, she also keeps the reader at bay, which is a pity, because there is much depth here to be explored, from the fear of a mammogram, the exhilaration of a hang glide type launch, the comparison between a failing athlete and a writer's rejection, or the confusion of Alzheimers: "Pia mater, gentle mother,/stay within my reach,/lest I become the next shell/cast empty on the beach." (21).
Despite her obvious capability, in most instances, Irvine goes for the turn of phrase, or for a neat rhyme rather than for a powerful metaphor, which dulls the power of the work. However, in the most painful and candid piece in the book, "Crumpled Tissue", which takes place three days after a husband's death, the poem beautifully conveys the sense of loss, and the reader is drawn deep into the pain and longing, and allowed to finger the empty relics of a person no longer there:
Why do I clutch your dirty shirts and underwear
as though they were the man? Why do I weep
as your sweat rises
live as Lazarus,
a holy incense?
I've mocked the cult of relics,
sneered at peasant pieties.
What else is left me now? (16)
This is an indication of Irvine's obvious talent, and it is a shame that she otherwise holds herself back. The second section, "Field Notes", goes outside, and explores the natural world with the abandon of the adventurer that Irvine is. For armchair travellers, this is a fun ride, and includes parachute jumping, kayaking, an ocean whale watching, an ecologist's perspective on extinction, and, in "Notes for a Field Guide," a series of very brief (not quite Haiku, but similar in approach) glimpses of specific types of wildlife, from the Galah to the Frill-necked Lizard: "Jurassic parachute deployed,/transparently defiant,/the frill-neck lizard rears." (46)
These poems explore a moment which disappears at the point of arrival, from the cute 2-3 line reflections, "Tapas," on a series of unrelated items from the corkscrew to the simile, the glass crystal drop, or a clever look at the value of a comma. In "Thylacine," Irvine once again gives up her talent for the limerick, creating a seriously moving poem written from the perspective of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger. Ghostly and vindictive, Irvine shows how capable she is of luring in the reader and evoking an emotional response, when she let's go of the cheeky rhyme and clever turn of phrase:
I am the striped totem
of this flayed island,
Naked in the westerlies,
torn by the Roaring Forties,
I clawed the beaten earth.
You flung me to the void.(37)
The final section, "I Took the Words Right Out of Your Mouth," contains fourteen poems which copy the style of well known poets like Seamus Heaney, John Donne, Emily Dickenson, Dorothy Porter, Garcia Lorca, Wallace Stevens, or Sylvia Plath. Some poke gentle fun at the poet, such as "Mummy," a pastiche of Plath's "Daddy," or "Organ Voluntary" which mocks the simple and prosaic "This is Just to Say" of William Carlos Williams. Others present a poetic tribute, such as "The River Children" after Heaney. As with almost all of the work in this book, these poems are very clever, well written, sharp and will leave the reader impressed at Irvine's obvious skill. However, aside from a few notable exceptions when Irvine shows just how capable she is of getting under the reader's skin, most of these poems will leave the reader chuckling, and impressed at the neatness of the rhyme and rhythm, or the aptness of the copy, but generally unmoved.
(Reviewed by Magdalena Ball, September 2004)
I Next I
Back I
Exit I
Thylazine No.10 (September, 2004) | |
