"As if you know what your element is/ And it isn't words, it isn't pills, it's water." Those lovely lines, from a poem called 'death by muddy water', express Mansell's need to define experience by emotional resonance, a truth judged on how one feels about it. If it feels right, it causes infinite ripples in water.
The imagery soars. If it feels wrong, the poet dismisses it in a curt, almost formal voices. Again, this reminds me of Wattison's work. And in the same vein is 'ordinary truth', the best-read poem on this CD; utterly convincing in its agonizing depiction of giving birth, and ending with the magnificent line "surely there must be beauty".
I wish Mansell hadn't followed 'ordinary truth' with 'Gaia speaks to the cherub'. The image of the beautiful baby, however she may have intended this to be a complimentary poem to 'ordinary truth', doesn't work on the listener's mind as powerfully. It seems forced. Mansell is better when she takes us to a more dangerous place, and surprises us. Gaia feels learned, taken from other sources or precedents, and dull.
Since what I'm reviewing here is a CD, and I did not have an additional printed text that accompanied the CD, I hope readers will excuse me for not quoting at length from a single poem. It would be too difficult, since I couldn't see the line breaks. However, I've quoted single lines from poems.
I'd prefer that the poems on The Fickle Brat did not rush by so fast. They proceed at a lightning pace, with barely a pause for the words to sink in. Perhaps, in performance, Mansell has a rapid-fire delivery, and is riveting in how she connects with her audience. On this CD, a few more seconds of silence would have added to the strengths of each poem, in the same way that kind of device adds to the stress of a beat in music. Still, her voice manages to carry us through a crowded recording with bravado.
There's another linked pair of poems on the CD, that are similar in theme the way 'ordinary truth' and 'Gaia and the cherub' are linked. This time, the theme is war. The poem 'under the skin' is a moving evocation of Darwin during WWII. What follows, however, is a sentimental poem titled 'song of my soldiers', which despite the specific details given, fails to achieve the desired effect.
The narrative poems of domestic ease and unease are less successful than her metaphysical, more lyrical poems such as 'the unstraight' or 'where edges are'. Mansell can write a killer line like "all virtue flies to the unstraight", but turns mundane with poems like "down among the vegetables", "the family", and "Melbourne spring fantasy". The chatty tone in 'death of a poet' becomes wearying; details of a person's life that remain untransformed and too much like gossip.
The CD ends beautifully with 'thank you, Milosz', and especially the very last poem, 'good poetry'. Here Mansell pulls out all the stops; she's gleeful and trenchant, producing a showstopper of a poem. 'good poetry' takes aim at arbiters of taste, including academics who promote safe and lifeless poems with only technically perfect surfaces. In her view, this kind of poetry "never throws up on your sofa," "has impeccable antecedents," and "never wears its heart on its sleeve." In contrast, Mansell then talks about "wild poetry" - poetry which is alive.
It's "a rare and endangered species". Maybe she's written - or will write - a poem or two like that, wild and whole: "If I'm lucky they will be gloriously feral". If we are all so lucky. Once again, Mansell's voice carries the day. It's wise.
(Reviewed by Sharon Olinka, March 2004)
