Tuesday 14 November 2017

Lifesaving Poems - A Review


Lifesaving Poems (edited by Antony Wilson, 2015, Bloodaxe Books)

This collection, edited by Anthony Wilson and containing his choice of favourites with a short essay after each one, has an unfortunate title.  It inevitably reminds one of those books that promote poetry as a form of self-help or therapy: poems to relax you, poems to inspire, poems that make men cry... Yes, poetry has been co-opted by the life coaching brigade, but I suppose anything that gets more people reading it can only be a good thing. And a good poem can stand up to any sort of treatment. 
                But following my recent experience of bereavement, I can see why people turn to poetry for help and consolation. When the odd bout of grief hits me, it’s a queasy, destabilising sensation that feels like someone has given a jar of water a shake and a layer of sediment has risen from the bottom and turned the water cloudy. Poetry, which often reminds me of what’s there in front of me, such as permanent features in nature and in our lives, has served to help me maintain some sense of equilibrium at a disturbing time.  
                In Lifesaving Poems, Wilson, a poet and a teacher, selects and comments on, poems that helped him become a poet, poems that stunned him and on poems that helped him through cancer. As he writes in the introduction, the book ‘is a thank you to the people who have shared a love of poetry with me.’ Despite the title and occasionally grim subject-matter, his choices are devoid of drama and sentimentality. Like all the best poems, they look at life in an unflinching manner, and they aren’t afraid to pick up the stone and observe what’s going on underneath. And that’s what the best poets do, I suppose: look hard at the things most of us turn away from or want to avoid thinking about.
                Wilson includes fantastic poems by the likes of Jo Shapcott, Raymond Carver and Sharon Olds and his short essays neatly balance analysis with personal reflection; his observations are always illuminating but they never steal the spotlight from the poems themselves.
                What’s most endearing about this book is the editor’s giddy enthusiasm for the poems and his championing of unknown or forgotten poets such as Stephen Berg, whose New and Selected Poems, Wilson writes, is available on Amazon for 13p.  Of Martin Stannard, he claims ‘had he come from New York or Zagreb, we would all be called him a genius by now.’  Poets need proselytisers and the ones included in this collection are lucky to have one like Wilson.

Thursday 9 November 2017

10 Rillington Place - Film Review





                The story of the killing of Beryl Evans by her landlord John Christie and his subsequent framing of her husband Timothy, Richard Fleisher’s 10 Rillington Place is a queasy masterpiece.  Murder apart, the depiction of Christie’s flea-pit of a boarding house is unpleasant enough in itself: ragged carpet lifts off the stairs, the cramped hallway is lit by a single dim lamp, he and his wife’s tiny quarters have barely enough room for a rope webbing deckchair and a medical cabinet containing the rubber tube he uses to gas his victims.


            The tenants are a sadly pathetic young couple, a feckless braggart played by John Hurt and his guileless wife (Judy Geeson) who are already struggling to support their baby daughter when they move into Christie’s house.  After discovering she is pregnant again, when Geeson decides to have an abortion, both she and Hurt show tragic naivete in putting their trust in the mild-mannered Christie, who assures them he has the medical experience to be able to help Beryl.


             The unsettling nature of the film has much to do with the realistic look of the production – there is nothing idealised in this portrayal of grimy post-war poverty – and the horribly inevitable manner in which the poor (and poorly educated) are exploited not only by Christie but also by the law.


              But the key element in making this such a disturbing experience is the chilling lead performance of Richard Attenbrough who moves soundlessly and half-whispers his way through the film. We often hear about the cold, calculating behaviour of psychopaths; as Christie, Attenbrough captures this perfectly. His calm and reasonable manner and apparent preoccupation with making tea is brilliantly complemented by the volatile, agitated Hurt, playing the perfect foil for his manipulative landlord.


                The BBC produced a second adaptation of the story, the three-part Rillington Place, in 2016.

Wednesday 8 November 2017

Loving the Alien: Nemesis the Warlock


The fifth issue of 2000AD: The Ultimate Collection features the frankly mind-bending Nemesis the Warlock. When people talk about the subversive side of 2000AD, it’s this truly bizarre story that quickly springs to mind. Pat Mills’s future version of an earth where quasi-religious fanatic Torquemada demands the annihilation of all aliens (or ‘deviants’ as he calls them) is brought to life by Kevin O’Neill’s startlingly grotesque, Bosch-like visuals in which clothes and buildings have a medieval/sado-masochistic look and everything appears to be alive.
                 It’s a strip that pulsates with anger, the work of two former Catholic schoolboys gleefully giving the finger to rigid authoritarian figures and dogma of all kinds. It’s somewhat hard to believe that this stuff was first published in the early-1980s, in a weekly comic aimed at pre-teens, one that shared the same stable as Tiger and Roy of the Rovers but, as managing editors from the time have since explained, it would have been foolish to tamper with a winning formula. And at that point, 2000AD had become a huge success with a significant readership among teenagers and college students.   

The titular character is the leader of an alien resistance force dedicating to alleviating the lot of those suffering under the yoke of the intolerant humans of Termight. The joy of the tale is in how readers’ expectations are confounded as the frequently hideous aliens are presented as sympathetic victims of the Klan-like human mob.  Kevin O’Neill’s artwork is sometimes so surreally detailed and deliberately unpleasant, it can be hard to look at but there are many unforgettable images here such as Nemesis’s Great Uncle Baal’s study with its fantastic collection of oddities including a chair made from a human skeleton, the joust between armour-clad female warlocks and the dizzying chase through the travel tube.

One of the most overtly political strips ever to appear in 2000AD, with its extreme depiction of what fear of ‘the other’ can drive people to do, Nemesis the Warlock remains as relevant as on its first appearance.

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Brexit and the Attempts to Shut Down Debate


                  I read an article recently in which the writer claimed that the U.K. was having a collective nervous breakdown.  It’s certainly felt like that for this blogger. I’ve watched BBC’s Question Time every week since the European Union referendum (usually on Youtube a couple of days after the live transmission) as I am fascinated by the persistent mood of anger and frustration among audience members and by the members of parliament who were Remainers but since the vote have become zealous Brexiters.  If that programme is an index to the general state of the nation, it seems a few springs have come loose.

                While I am sad about the impending departure of Britain from the E.U. (it’s bad for Ireland, where I live, and bad for Europe) what makes me sadder still are the attempts of some to stifle debate.  On Question Time, one regularly hears panellists and audience members admonishing those who complain about the decision to leave and demanding that those who are sceptical of the government’s approach stop criticising them and leave them to get on with it. Those who question the decision to leave the community are branded sore losers and remoaners and even traitors who are intent on ‘talking down’ Britain and weakening its bargaining position.

                For someone who has for years watched British democracy with a great deal of admiration, this is a sorry state of affairs.

     Having lived six months in Britain, and having spent much of my life watching British television and reading British newspapers, I have always been struck by how much complaining people do over there and this extends to the country's media. Reading the home news in any British newspaper and you would think the U.K. was teetering on the brink of collapse (failing schools, struggling health service, creaking infrastructure).  Unlike most people in Ireland, the British have long been highly critical of public services and government and this is partly due to a lingering notion that life on that island was better in the  decade or so after World War II. 

                But I think this propensity to complain and criticise is also linked to the fact that the U.K. is a mature, stable democracy where people know that the state can withstand scathing attacks. Complaint and criticism are expressions of freedom and confidence. Ireland is still an immature state where many people are afraid to ‘talk down’ the country by pointing out its flaws. During my lifetime, that has not been the case with the U.K….until now.

                I’ve always considered Britain to be a complex place but one in which reason and pragmatism were the chief values of its people and its parliament: many of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers were British, its political system has been remarkably stable for more than 350 years, and the U.K. has been in the vanguard of countries that have introduced progressive

policies for society at large.  Fascism has never put down strong roots in Britain partly because the people genuinely cherish freedom of expression.

                And that is why headlines like ‘Crush the saboteurs’ or the sight of columnists, politicians and members of the public telling dissenters to shut up and allow the government to do its work, are so depressing. Debate is the one essential component of a democracy and if this is dampened in one of the world’s most argumentative countries, it spells trouble for everyone.