D A Prince is surprised and delighted by very substantial first collection from David Cameron
The Bright Tethers: Poems 1988 â 2016
David Cameron
RĂșn Press, 2016
ISBN 978-0-9574669-6-8
256 pp ÂŁ10
This book overturns all expectations for a first collection. With almost thirty-yearsâ-worth of poems itâs closer to a âCollectedâ but Cameron has leap-frogged the conventional line-up of slim volumes which generally precede that weighty âCollectedâ. SeĂĄn Haldane, the publisher and editor, explains in his introduction that Cameron has had a small number of poems published in magazines and that he won the Hennessy Literary Award for Poetry in Ireland in 2014. This award comes through nomination by fellow poets: a good recommendation. Finding a committed poet who eschews the more competitive routes to publication and who overturns the conventional advice is both refreshing and restorative.
Nor does this book look like a poetry collection. Squat and stocky, A6 in size, it looks more like a breviary or prayer book at first glance and, with its soft cover, handles like one. RĂșn Press aims to revive the German âTaschenbuchâ (pocket book) tradition â and it fits a handbag, too. Itâs a perfect size for Cameronâs poems: in general he favours single-page poems, and even where shorter poems fit two to a page they donât feel over-crowded. These are poems of daily life â the physical, tangible, cluttering, comforting, broken objects and all their associations that accumulate in homes and families. He is not a minimalist de-clutterer â at least, in the domestic sense. His vocabulary and syntax, however, are clear: his poetry aims to capture his own past (for himself) and to make it recognisable (for the reader) â hence the brevity of most poems and the attention to the musical/rhythmic line. âAs a matter of fact, all was cracked;/ Rhyme kept the whole shebang intactâ (from âRhymedâ) is one way of showing how language can anchor childhood memories. Another is by naming:
We keep these broken things â
The listing, buckled, clothes-horse,
More asinine than equine;
The pedal-less pedal-bin â
In part, because weâre broken too,
Or else captivated.
Cameron is sensitive to the layer of meanings in âlistingâ. At one level his metaphor is almost too simple; at another it touches us directly and memorably, finding out the odds and ends at the back of our own kitchen drawers, and then carefully letting the metaphor slip into those invisible but equally real areas of shame, failure, loss â inner associations that are the painful part of the examined life. âThis is the hardest part, to tell/ Your lifeâs tale, and make yourself visible/ To yourself âŠâ (from âThe Flawâ). Cameronâs care in use of rhyme allied to syllabic structures can hold the seemingly slight details together, as in âVisit homeâ â
Odds and ends. Ours went in
A Quality Street tin
We kept in the long press.
A sealed togetherness
Of incompatibles:
Loose thread, out-of-date pills
Were one under tin lid.
Our time togetherâs ended
As flesh has gone its ways,
But housed here, unstitched of days.
Could anyone read this poem without going back to their own childhood? Cameronâs use of âOurs âŠâ in the first line (then repeated, with the emphasis indicated by italics) quietly implies the question: what was yours? Then: what is yours? â what memories are we laying down for future generations in our ordinary, unique lives. Cameron is closely observant of children and their ways of learning. In âEtymology of wentâ he considers how his son expresses the past while he, the poet, reacts instinctively to the linguistic element –
âYesterday I goed on a ferry-boat.â
âThatâs wrong, son,â I want not to say,
Want not to think mechanically,
Bad grammar, but youâve learned the rule at least,
While you see again an island emerging.
Within the eight sections that make up this collection there is a personal narrative â love, travel, loss, specific locations â but this operates in an inclusive rather than an excluding way; this is not confessional poetry but a distillation of a recognisable material world and the self-blame which shares the same space. Cameron is a questioning poet, literally: I canât recall a collection with more question marks. These allow space for contemplation â as in the final two lines of the title poem âThe Bright Tethersâ: âWho will find him, now he has slackened/ The bright tethers that had bound him to his life?â Or they recognise the mix of emotion in apparently-simple actions: here, in full, is his poem âNight Singingâ
There comes a time in singing to a child,
As the small limbs go limp and the breaths deepen,
That you become aware of weight. Itâs then
You hear your voice, and in it something wild.
Why do fears come? Nothing on any shelf
Can tell you in this place of simple rhyme.
The childâs asleep, and has been for some time.
Youâre only singing now to soothe yourself.
Thoughtful, tentative, musical, human in scale: these are poems which deserve to last.
by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2017 • Tags: books, D A Prince, poetry • 0 Comments
D A Prince is surprised and delighted by very substantial first collection from David Cameron
This book overturns all expectations for a first collection. With almost thirty-yearsâ-worth of poems itâs closer to a âCollectedâ but Cameron has leap-frogged the conventional line-up of slim volumes which generally precede that weighty âCollectedâ. SeĂĄn Haldane, the publisher and editor, explains in his introduction that Cameron has had a small number of poems published in magazines and that he won the Hennessy Literary Award for Poetry in Ireland in 2014. This award comes through nomination by fellow poets: a good recommendation. Finding a committed poet who eschews the more competitive routes to publication and who overturns the conventional advice is both refreshing and restorative.
Nor does this book look like a poetry collection. Squat and stocky, A6 in size, it looks more like a breviary or prayer book at first glance and, with its soft cover, handles like one. RĂșn Press aims to revive the German âTaschenbuchâ (pocket book) tradition â and it fits a handbag, too. Itâs a perfect size for Cameronâs poems: in general he favours single-page poems, and even where shorter poems fit two to a page they donât feel over-crowded. These are poems of daily life â the physical, tangible, cluttering, comforting, broken objects and all their associations that accumulate in homes and families. He is not a minimalist de-clutterer â at least, in the domestic sense. His vocabulary and syntax, however, are clear: his poetry aims to capture his own past (for himself) and to make it recognisable (for the reader) â hence the brevity of most poems and the attention to the musical/rhythmic line. âAs a matter of fact, all was cracked;/ Rhyme kept the whole shebang intactâ (from âRhymedâ) is one way of showing how language can anchor childhood memories. Another is by naming:
Cameron is sensitive to the layer of meanings in âlistingâ. At one level his metaphor is almost too simple; at another it touches us directly and memorably, finding out the odds and ends at the back of our own kitchen drawers, and then carefully letting the metaphor slip into those invisible but equally real areas of shame, failure, loss â inner associations that are the painful part of the examined life. âThis is the hardest part, to tell/ Your lifeâs tale, and make yourself visible/ To yourself âŠâ (from âThe Flawâ). Cameronâs care in use of rhyme allied to syllabic structures can hold the seemingly slight details together, as in âVisit homeâ â
Could anyone read this poem without going back to their own childhood? Cameronâs use of âOurs âŠâ in the first line (then repeated, with the emphasis indicated by italics) quietly implies the question: what was yours? Then: what is yours? â what memories are we laying down for future generations in our ordinary, unique lives. Cameron is closely observant of children and their ways of learning. In âEtymology of wentâ he considers how his son expresses the past while he, the poet, reacts instinctively to the linguistic element –
Within the eight sections that make up this collection there is a personal narrative â love, travel, loss, specific locations â but this operates in an inclusive rather than an excluding way; this is not confessional poetry but a distillation of a recognisable material world and the self-blame which shares the same space. Cameron is a questioning poet, literally: I canât recall a collection with more question marks. These allow space for contemplation â as in the final two lines of the title poem âThe Bright Tethersâ: âWho will find him, now he has slackened/ The bright tethers that had bound him to his life?â Or they recognise the mix of emotion in apparently-simple actions: here, in full, is his poem âNight Singingâ
Thoughtful, tentative, musical, human in scale: these are poems which deserve to last.