And a huge biography which tells little more than this is a poet who is touting for work. Aren't we all?
Bakowski is not writing for other poets, though, he is writing poems that he intends to present at readings whenever and wherever he can. The poems rise effortlessly from the page, and it is this that I want to focus on. That Bakowski is accomplished is evident in the first poem, "Moon Above the City".
The moon is:
"Pawnbroker
of
light,
pausing
In the mirror
of
a puddle ...
to admire yourself"
and concluding, when the dawn sun rises "to sweep/ the sky clean".
Ok. Here are the non-linear associations and neo-surreal techniques, I like a long thin poem. I read on, & on. The poet's voice is loud, clever and honed to audience appeal. I'm just not sure that I like the voice on the page. e.g. Paris 1999. The poet walks apparently from Pigalle to Rue de Rivoli. I don't believe him, he should have taken the Metro, but then again, maybe he did walk because at the end of the poem he tells us that
"the only response
we can afford
is
to sigh"
He was in Paris! Why wasn't he at the Pompidou where it costs nothing to be entertained all day by buskers? And what was he doing in Paris with no money anyway? Doing a George Orwell? Did he blow all his money going to see the Mona Lisa? Didn't he notice the Parisian chic? This is a poem that loses meaning on the page. In fact, it isn't really a poem at all, it's a list with a whinge tagged on, those neo-surreal techniques, all flash and dazzle. (Note to the publisher: a back cover quote?) See what I mean about those quotes? Paris was wasted on Bakowski, he missed so much because of his over-sensitive hip-pocket nerve.
But nothing like telling it like it is to win audience sympathy, and this alone should ensure that he sells a lot of books at readings.
Bakowski tells the reader about his life and his motivation, "Fly TAA The Friendly Way" and "Against The Odds". I can imagine that country audiences would be captivated by Bakowski, his appeal is enormous. As I progressed through the collection, I could envisage him at a reading, his voice taking us backwards and forwards in time through narrative, "A Young Wife's Letter to Her Soldier Husband in Dunkerque, 9 May 1940", "lyric", "The Children of Divorce and fable", "Sunday Evening Coming Down".
Overall, Bakowski's voice grates. "St Kilda Blues, Melbourne 1989", shows him
"Visiting
an old love
with
a new boyfriend
deciding that
... sometimes
walking
is all you know"
Another poem that would go over well at a reading, but one that just screams "WIMP" to me. He was in St Kilda, he should have paid a working girl and bought the experience that would have made a great poem.
Another example of this covert dishonesty is "Self-Portrait", which leaves me with the feeling that if I was a trapeze flier, I wouldn't want him as my catcher.
In "Observations", his hip-pocket nerve is playing up again. Poets don't need to hear how hard other poets lives are, from an audience perspective, poverty can be used as a romantic device, after all it only has one more letter than poetry. It bothers me that Bakowski is always within his own frame of reference. It's a no-risk kind of writing and makes no attempt to challenge the reader.
With reference to the poem, "The Ballad of Rick and Verna", I wonder whether the subject matter is worth three pages.
The title poem fails to tell the reader whether the poet's days
"end in
honesty
or
blindness"
and I don't really care.
In the "Bounced Cheque of Romance", this theme is re-iterated through the story of Warren and Anita.
And again in "Edna's World". The reader would hope that Edna had full private health cover to have that cough seen to. Bakowski is too mean to even give us a whole alphabet - we make do with half an alphabet plus Q.
In "Against the Odds", Bakowski tells us about his overflowing wastepaper bin (hasn't he heard of the paperless office?), and leaves me wishing that he'd chill to the twenty-first century.
This poet is out of time.
Neverthless. I would like to see him read, or at least hear the poems in his actual voice and not my imagined one. That he is popular with audiences is unquestionable, and a workshop could easily be run using this collection as a guide.
(Reviewed by MML Bliss, September 2003)
