Stephen Claughton is transported by Wendy Holborowâs atmospheric poems from India and Africa
Janky Tuk Tuks
Wendy Holborow
The High Window
ISBN 978-0-244-39812-5
ÂŁ10.00
Wendy Holborow is a prize-winning poet, playwright and short-story writer, who has published poetry collections on subjects as various as living on Corfu, travelling in Italy, the people and animals in Ford Madox Brownâs painting, âWorkâ, and classics of the European cinema. Her latest, Janky Tuk Tuks, contains poems about India and Africa, as well as a short story set in Africa.
Janky tuk-tuks are clapped-out, motorised rickshaws and hers transport us right into the sights and sounds, not to mention the feel, of India. As she says in âGradationsâ, the first poem in the book:
air travel violently tears us out of the cold
hurtles us, say, into the blaze of the tropics
unaccustomed to the torture of scorching heat.
In the next poem, âHazeâ, she leaves a âdrab and grey Port Talbotâ to âwake to the vibrancy of Indiaâ, though it is only âas we drive to pastoral hamlets away from polluted airâ that she finds:
Unsullied skies, freckled shade sweeps the windowsâ heat
as we reach that solunar time, dusk falls like ripening wheat.
Contrasts are made between home and abroad, with their different meteorological and emotional climates, and also between the poetâs life and that of the local women; but the poems are mainly concerned with describing what the writer sees. âThrough a Lensâ is about photographing â and being photographed by and with â people in India as a way of forging connections. In much of the book Holborow is a camera. The images may be linguistically enhanced, but she takes her subjects on their own terms (âThey have their own agenda / these birds we watch / have no awareness that we are charmed / by their presence.â)
A particular feature of her poems is the way in which she heightens an otherwise conversational style with alliteration and assonance, as at the end of âMonsoonâ:
In the morning margin of sky
a blush dawn bursts on the warmth
of swarming-insect buzz
wild boars wallow in accumulated mud
but the onslaught of floods is feared
Holborow also makes the use of striking images and unusual words: a tiger with âchiaroscuro stripesâ stalks deer with âcoats like peeling barkâ; âthe Nile startles through treesâ; âsheets scream dampâ; dogs âcongregate with insincere threats.â There are âpencil line horizonsâ, âhumidity as high as the tallest treeâ, âa journey of giraffesâ and âa dazzle of zebrasâ â a reference perhaps to the âdazzle camouflageâ used on ships in the First World War. There are words such as âfeculentâ, ânielloedâ, âsutheringâ, âcrizzlingâ, âsmeuseâ, âlutulentâ and âsolunarâ â twice (its dictionary definition is âdue to the conjunction of sun and moonâ and describes a theory predicting the periods of greatest animal activity, although here it seems to mean simply âtwilitâ).
Though I never felt that the lusher language was overdone, there were a few occasions when I thought the plainer style became a little too plain â for instance, in âThe Taj Mahalâ, the comparative flatness of âa paradise garden cultivated by Shah Jahan / for his much loved wife, Mumtaz Mahal who left him bereftâ marred for me an otherwise fine poem (itâs in the shape of a dome) and one or two of the poems (âThe Trainâ or âTigerâ, for example) were rounded off in a way that I didnât feel did them full justice.
But these are minor criticisms. If there is a problem with descriptive poems in knowing not so much when as how to stop, itâs one she deftly resolves in âBirdsâ, which ends:
I could describe how the colours of birds
saturate into a saffron sunset
as the sun slips away from a tie-dyed sky
and how they retreat
into their own secret world
incurious oblivious.
By suggesting that there is more she could say about the birds, she keeps the poem airborne.
A number of poems use âopen fieldâ composition to good effect. In this context, it conveyed for me the impression of a vibrant, seemingly chaotic world establishing its own order without the imposed constraints of punctuation or metrics. But she also puts it to more specific use, as in âHanumanâ (about a Hindu god), where thought and action are presented simultaneously in:
The child, Hanuman, observed the red orb of the sun
reached toward it
supposing it a piece of fruit
and the subsequent act of recovering his remains is expressed concretely in:
they gathered
his ashes & bones
from the land & the seas.
Sometimes, however, the technique becomes little more than a mannerism â I didnât feel there was much gained by placing words such as âfellâ or âupâ and âoverâ respectively below or above the line.
Holborow handles humour well. âThe Highway Code of Indiaâ, where the janky tuk-tuks make their appearance, along with ârollicking rickshawsâ, presents a selection of articles (âArticle 1: The assumption of immortality is required of all road usersâ or âArticle 12: The 10th incarnation of God was an articulated tankerâ), illustrated by the accompanying poems. âDoing a Prince Charlesâ (two sonnets with a decidedly sprung rhythm) describes the potentially harmful effects of Western do-goodery, while âFeed Me to the Tigerâ asks that in the event of her death in India, âsay, in a traffic accidentâ, the poetâs body should be fed to the tigers of Ranthambore, saving not only on funeral fees and grave maintenance, but also so that: âgenerations to come would talk of their ancestor / devoured by a tiger in Ranthambore.â
The same self-mocking tendency to indulge in personal myth-making is continued in âNot Such a Clanky Jeepâ (clanky jeeps being the African equivalent of janky tuk-tuks), in which she describes a jeep getting stuck in a âNational Park / patrolled only by ferocious creaturesâ. Her instinct is to embellish the tale with stories of being menaced by lions, a leopard and a herd of elephants â amusing in retrospect, but after their driver refuses to get out to winch the vehicle to safety and manages instead to manoeuvre it out of the mud, the fears become more real. They travel on âin exultation / yet not knowing / if a deeper morass awaits / or the imagined elephants loiter / around the next bend.â
In âTwelve Ugandan Womenâ, she says that her most memorable moment was not an encounter with animals, but being photographed with a group of brightly-dressed women who insisted on shaking her hand. Nevertheless, her animals are vividly described. There is rage against cruelty in âDead Horsesâ, one of them sunk into the sand âlike the carcass of a wrecked shipâ, as well as poems featuring chimps, monkeys, giraffes, zebras and lions, and the gloriously-titled âGlamping with Hipposâ.
The very fine short story, âNgoziâ, with which the book ends is about an African woman, alone with her four young children, beginning a journey from their looted village to what she hopes will be the safety of a refugee camp. Told simply in short sentences, it nevertheless creates an atmosphere that draws us fully into the womanâs world and the terrible predicament she faces.
Taking his cue from the title of one of the poems, Professor John Goodby says in his introduction that the book âcontains a âfabulous rabbleâ of rattling good poemsâ. That is certainly true, as is his observation that they relish language for its own sake. I donât care if the dictionary tells me that âjankyâ is Afro-American slang, not Indian as I had assumed, or that âtuk-tukâ is a Thai word â Wendy Holborowâs arresting fusion is the perfect phrase for these unruly, mechanical beasts.
London Grip Poetry Review – Wendy Holborow
April 5, 2019 by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, travel, year 2019 • Tags: books, poetry, Stephen Claughton, travel • 0 Comments
Stephen Claughton is transported by Wendy Holborowâs atmospheric poems from India and Africa
Wendy Holborow is a prize-winning poet, playwright and short-story writer, who has published poetry collections on subjects as various as living on Corfu, travelling in Italy, the people and animals in Ford Madox Brownâs painting, âWorkâ, and classics of the European cinema. Her latest, Janky Tuk Tuks, contains poems about India and Africa, as well as a short story set in Africa.
Janky tuk-tuks are clapped-out, motorised rickshaws and hers transport us right into the sights and sounds, not to mention the feel, of India. As she says in âGradationsâ, the first poem in the book:
In the next poem, âHazeâ, she leaves a âdrab and grey Port Talbotâ to âwake to the vibrancy of Indiaâ, though it is only âas we drive to pastoral hamlets away from polluted airâ that she finds:
Contrasts are made between home and abroad, with their different meteorological and emotional climates, and also between the poetâs life and that of the local women; but the poems are mainly concerned with describing what the writer sees. âThrough a Lensâ is about photographing â and being photographed by and with â people in India as a way of forging connections. In much of the book Holborow is a camera. The images may be linguistically enhanced, but she takes her subjects on their own terms (âThey have their own agenda / these birds we watch / have no awareness that we are charmed / by their presence.â)
A particular feature of her poems is the way in which she heightens an otherwise conversational style with alliteration and assonance, as at the end of âMonsoonâ:
Holborow also makes the use of striking images and unusual words: a tiger with âchiaroscuro stripesâ stalks deer with âcoats like peeling barkâ; âthe Nile startles through treesâ; âsheets scream dampâ; dogs âcongregate with insincere threats.â There are âpencil line horizonsâ, âhumidity as high as the tallest treeâ, âa journey of giraffesâ and âa dazzle of zebrasâ â a reference perhaps to the âdazzle camouflageâ used on ships in the First World War. There are words such as âfeculentâ, ânielloedâ, âsutheringâ, âcrizzlingâ, âsmeuseâ, âlutulentâ and âsolunarâ â twice (its dictionary definition is âdue to the conjunction of sun and moonâ and describes a theory predicting the periods of greatest animal activity, although here it seems to mean simply âtwilitâ).
Though I never felt that the lusher language was overdone, there were a few occasions when I thought the plainer style became a little too plain â for instance, in âThe Taj Mahalâ, the comparative flatness of âa paradise garden cultivated by Shah Jahan / for his much loved wife, Mumtaz Mahal who left him bereftâ marred for me an otherwise fine poem (itâs in the shape of a dome) and one or two of the poems (âThe Trainâ or âTigerâ, for example) were rounded off in a way that I didnât feel did them full justice.
But these are minor criticisms. If there is a problem with descriptive poems in knowing not so much when as how to stop, itâs one she deftly resolves in âBirdsâ, which ends:
By suggesting that there is more she could say about the birds, she keeps the poem airborne.
A number of poems use âopen fieldâ composition to good effect. In this context, it conveyed for me the impression of a vibrant, seemingly chaotic world establishing its own order without the imposed constraints of punctuation or metrics. But she also puts it to more specific use, as in âHanumanâ (about a Hindu god), where thought and action are presented simultaneously in:
and the subsequent act of recovering his remains is expressed concretely in:
Sometimes, however, the technique becomes little more than a mannerism â I didnât feel there was much gained by placing words such as âfellâ or âupâ and âoverâ respectively below or above the line.
Holborow handles humour well. âThe Highway Code of Indiaâ, where the janky tuk-tuks make their appearance, along with ârollicking rickshawsâ, presents a selection of articles (âArticle 1: The assumption of immortality is required of all road usersâ or âArticle 12: The 10th incarnation of God was an articulated tankerâ), illustrated by the accompanying poems. âDoing a Prince Charlesâ (two sonnets with a decidedly sprung rhythm) describes the potentially harmful effects of Western do-goodery, while âFeed Me to the Tigerâ asks that in the event of her death in India, âsay, in a traffic accidentâ, the poetâs body should be fed to the tigers of Ranthambore, saving not only on funeral fees and grave maintenance, but also so that: âgenerations to come would talk of their ancestor / devoured by a tiger in Ranthambore.â
The same self-mocking tendency to indulge in personal myth-making is continued in âNot Such a Clanky Jeepâ (clanky jeeps being the African equivalent of janky tuk-tuks), in which she describes a jeep getting stuck in a âNational Park / patrolled only by ferocious creaturesâ. Her instinct is to embellish the tale with stories of being menaced by lions, a leopard and a herd of elephants â amusing in retrospect, but after their driver refuses to get out to winch the vehicle to safety and manages instead to manoeuvre it out of the mud, the fears become more real. They travel on âin exultation / yet not knowing / if a deeper morass awaits / or the imagined elephants loiter / around the next bend.â
In âTwelve Ugandan Womenâ, she says that her most memorable moment was not an encounter with animals, but being photographed with a group of brightly-dressed women who insisted on shaking her hand. Nevertheless, her animals are vividly described. There is rage against cruelty in âDead Horsesâ, one of them sunk into the sand âlike the carcass of a wrecked shipâ, as well as poems featuring chimps, monkeys, giraffes, zebras and lions, and the gloriously-titled âGlamping with Hipposâ.
The very fine short story, âNgoziâ, with which the book ends is about an African woman, alone with her four young children, beginning a journey from their looted village to what she hopes will be the safety of a refugee camp. Told simply in short sentences, it nevertheless creates an atmosphere that draws us fully into the womanâs world and the terrible predicament she faces.
Taking his cue from the title of one of the poems, Professor John Goodby says in his introduction that the book âcontains a âfabulous rabbleâ of rattling good poemsâ. That is certainly true, as is his observation that they relish language for its own sake. I donât care if the dictionary tells me that âjankyâ is Afro-American slang, not Indian as I had assumed, or that âtuk-tukâ is a Thai word â Wendy Holborowâs arresting fusion is the perfect phrase for these unruly, mechanical beasts.