Eighty Four curated by Helen Calcutt

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This collection of poems on male suicide, vulnerability, grief and hope sold in aid of CALM must come with trigger warnings.

There is such generosity in the poets sharing their pain.

From the introduction “… for whatever reason, society encourages an oversimplified existence, thus generating accepted ‘norms’ to our behaviour. We live, we die. We weep, we laugh. We suffer, we feel joy. It would seem we’re only ready to acknowledge and celebrate three of these six crucial human emotions.”

Some extracts from the poems…

From Hide All the Knives by Katrina Naomi

“…

I didn’t know you anymore,

though I tried to tell myself

I loved you.

...”

From Impromptu from MT Taylor

“…

On the day of the funeral

I asked his wife why

there was no piano in their home.

She said there was no room.

I understood at once

that he had never really lived there.”

From Multiple Choice by Casey Bailey

“…

The most difficult multiple choice questions

are not the ones where you feel like all

of the answers could be right.

The most difficult multiple choice questions

are the one s where you feel like none

of the answers can be right,

but you must choose one anyway.”

Evening Prayer by Abi Budgen

“Evening hangs in pastel hues

Iridescent, sweet and warm

Holding its breath

Dogs and bikes and ordinary things

Pass it by

Day, relentless

Parched and gasping

Now quenched with calm

Breathes out slowly

Releases all tension

Another spirit

Home

A Dream by David Calcutt

...All your concentration

strained towards the journey you were making

and I was powerless to stop you, just as I was powerless

to turn away from watching. No call of mine

would bring you back. …”

A Commonplace by Jonathan Davidson

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This is an interesting collection, of Davidson own poems and a few by others, which are interspersed by reflections, that give it the feel of a poetry reading, the chatter of introduction you would get between poems – from those one phrase really sticks out “The poem reads me” - how true is that, really good poems have that power to see into our being.

Two of the poems

Didcot Parkway

Never Parkway to us

who roamed around

the platform as boys.

We’d look up the line

to London and see

the nose of a locomotive

seemingly not moving

then suddenly here,

roaring and yellow,

dull blue flanks, its

arrival never as great

as its coming towards us.

Leaving

When we left it was the end of everything.

We didn’t even bother to lock up.

We walked to the craft -

those who could -

and counted ourselves in.

It’s the children I feel sorry for;

what they won’t know about rain showers and thunder;

what they won’t know about crossing a cold brook barefoot

or lying in a hanger of beech trees at evening

and hearing the leaving talking.

I know I romanticise.

I know nothing is immutable.

I know it shouldn’t trouble me

that a beautiful future awaits us:

my children, and their children,

their bodies powered-down to drift

down icy streams to pleasant distant worlds,

their eyes closed, their mouths still.

The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman by Katie Manning

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The Bleeding Woman of the title is the one that touched Jesus’ cloak and was healed – and the first half explores her side of the story, and the second wider ranging reflection looking through her eyes.

One of the poems…

The Flesh Made Word

(Nura’s Translation)

They found God praying to himself in a garden. One man

kissed him on the cheek. Amen. It was finished. They

marched him off to watch the judge wash his hands.

They thorned his crown and flayed his back, walked him

up a slop of skulls and nailed him to a T. Some men

bled his slide and gambled for his clothes. Some women

cried for themselves. The God held his breath. It was

finished. Amen. Nothing left but to gather his body

between sheets and lay him in a book to rise again.

The Missing by Siân Hughes

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I got this having read some of the poems in the Forward 2010 collection.

Two of the other poems…

Aitken Drum

The older children carry their own drips and lines

down the corridor for activities. Music today,

two people with guitars and a box of percussion

bash out Aitken Drum, once through for each child.

Between choruses they ask for names,

try to pick up the whispers.

You can’t join in. You’re too young to lift your head,

even if the sound of the gently shaken tambourine

didn’t upset you, the way all noise upsets you, even if

you stopped crying, the light stopped hurting your eyes,

if you wore, and told me, in a whisper,

your secret name.

My Children

were never going to be like that, egg-white

in sunlight, who refuse food, refuse sleep,

projectile vomit, have teeth full of holes,

have special food in sealed containers,

use three dummies at a time, who, when they slip

and fall in the rain, run full pelt down the street

away from me, and won’t be comforted.

I was never going to have children who did that.

Not Quite Out by Louise Willingham

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When I ordered this book I thought it would be set in America, not sure why, so it was a pleasant surprise to find it was set somewhere even more exotic – Keele :-) and having lived on Campus at Keele I read it with a strong sense of place, which if I am honest I think came from my memories rather than the writing itself. I know the Z sheds, I have walked drunkenly back to Halls from the Union – just the amount of time they spend in the Students Union building, that is a very Keele thing and not typical of the other Universities I have been a part of.

I found William pretentiously irritating, and so self-absorbed, but in a way that felt completely authentic of a second year Uni student – I am not sure if that was intentional but if it isn’t it is an unwitting success. I think I found myself identifying with William and having a crush on Dan.

There are lots of things about the narrative that don’t really “work” - people get majorly upset about things that don’t matter, and then are water off ducks back about pretty big stuff – but then again real people can be like that – and somehow it all got under my skin so I found reading it a visceral experience.

Politically Homeless by Matt Forde

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This is account of Matt Forde’s journey from youthful activist to jaded comic and commentator. He begins in a place of naive optimism, perhaps it is the gift/curse of every generation to think that they will be the ones that actually change the world for the better. Coming of age as New Labour replaced the worn out remains of Thatcher's Tories played into that narrative for him.

He has now fallen out of love with the Labour party and the book is limited by the resulting narrow focus on bitter critique of Labour as led by Corbyn. I found too much of it to be sound bites played for laughs. It is a very specific group, the socially liberal centre left, among the politically homeless that he is interested in. He doesn’t really manage to address the wider malaise of our current political age – in particular to way in which social media has created a state of perpetual campaign and eaten any space for reasoned political dialogue. It is disappointing given the final chapter when he talks about his “The Political Party” podcast is a now rare example of a space for such dialogue – suggesting that Forde “gets it” despite the impression given by the preceding 12 chapters…

The Last Children of Mill Creek by Vivian Gibson

 Out of print, but buy it from abebooks.co.uk 

Vivian shares a vivid account of her childhood, giving a richness to the insight she offers us.

It is in many ways a hard childhood, they are hemmed in by societal constrains on the black working-class.

But it is hopefully, her Mother might have had to put away her own dreams but past on a spirit that taken Vivian forward to reach ambitions.

When Mill Creek is subject to “slum clearance” to make way for a highway – as was (and is) often the case officialdom fails to see the vitality of a community because of its apparent material lack.

This is heightened compared with the same process within the UK by the additional racial dynamic, and the very stark and rapid white flight as black families move to new neighbourhoods.

Crucifox by Geraldine Clarkson

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From this pamphlet a poem…

winding down

maybe a tree falls

or a bear keels

maybe all the creatures of song are brought low

and the grasshopper drags itself along

and the moon fails

clearly a light has left the earth

bleeding slowly

while the waters stopped clapping their hands

it’s the end of lilies

and liver-freckled butterflies

the last flew off this summer

the wind is tired now

has petit mal

is going home

shutting up shop

just a few scarlet leaves

spin in its sigh

as it boards up the door

The Forward Book of Poetry 2007

 Out of print, but buy it from abebooks.co.uk 

I put tabs on the following poems

Giuseppe by Roderick Ford

Monogamy by Kate Bingham, in particular the lines…

Time’s not the test. Who loves best won’t always love

longest…

Six-Billionth Bay by Penelope Shuttle, in particular the lines…

Maybe the afterlife

will be disappointing as a cloudy eclipse

or unjust as the death of the Cornish tongue...

The Forward Book of Poetry 2008

 Out of print, but buy it from abebooks.co.uk 

I put tabs on the following poems

Thursday by Lorraine Mariner

London by Elaine Feinstein

They Said by Cynthia Fuller

The Orphan Doll by Seni Seneviratne

Don’t Commit Adultery by Jackie Wills

On Priesthood by Stephen Cottrell

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I am sorry to say I didn’t connect with this book – given the existing abundance of books on vocation it is maybe difficult to find anything new to say, but the expectation was that Stephen Cottrell would nevertheless bring fresh insight. But I found the reflections dry, and often wrapped up some tightly in “churchy” language that they became platitudes.

It was also disappointing that the production of the book was poor – Hodder & Stoughton have clearly opted for a hard-back binding in that this would often be given as a keepsake gift to the newly ordained. The pages of the first copy I received fell out as so as I opened it, the replacement copy was little better – but maybe this is not actually an issue if few are inspired to return and re-read the reflections over the years of their ministry – it would at least look nice strategical placed on the study bookshelf in the background Zoom calls.