Nick Cooke finds honesty and authenticity in a debut collection by Ian Humphreys
Zebra
Ian Humphreys
Nine Arches Press
ISBN 978-1911027706
74 pp ÂŁ9.99
Reading this impressive debut collection in tandem with Johnny Marrâs inspirational memoir Set the Boy Free sent my mind reeling back, albeit along two very different paths, to the Manchester of the last quarter of the twentieth century. During the Nineties the ânâ in the cityâs name became a âdâ â both in the media and in much of the popular imagination. Its raw in-yer-face energy struck me (from my few but memorably intense visits) as a force that lived up to the hype, and more than rivalled London, where the prevailing New-Agey atmosphere was by some lights cooler, but definitely less edgy overall. Humphreysâ book, like Marrâs, largely unfolds against the background of the gradual build-up to that time, focussing on his early life in Manchester over the preceding two decades.
Some of that rawness emerges early on in a disturbing yet hilarious account of his upbringing. âPOP!â refers both to his father and the sound of paternal fists slamming into offspringâs heads, the latter of which becomes more Batmanishly cartoon-like as the poem proceeds. It turns out the situation is Larkinesque in its handing on of inhumanity: the father confesses that his own âIrish fatherâ
thumped him down the stairs KRASH! In those black
and white days it was common as powdered eggs
but then, with inadvertently deadpan humour, indicates just how smoothly the baton can be passed:
One time
dad smacked him back KAPOW! and that was the end
of it They celebrated with a pint of bitter at the Conservative
Club
The poem has an ambiguous end, with a teasing enquiry into the nature of revenge and malevolence, as the speaker, clearly going against the violent grain in physical terms at least, announces he never hit his dad
although once I held a carton of fruit juice to his lips as he lay
dying in a ticking hospital bed BOOM! To me
that felt like Iâd punched him in the mouth hard
That hint of Faulkner suggests the speakerâs literary aspirations, while the theme of isolation is soon developed, as the poet details his teenage years spent coming to terms with his then-still-marginalised sexual orientation and the ensuing experiences. The title of âAnother boyâs storyâ, dedicated to âall the other voices that spoke up firstâ, references a key literary influence, Edmund White, and the poem goes on to salute two more, Wilde and Baldwin. However, even though he is worldly enough to register and reflect sardonically on a teacherâs homophobia â
Mr Brigham assured us
he had nothing against
homosexuals except
they stink of shit because
when you deal in shit
you stink of shit
(âBad Fruitâ) â
it transpires that the young poetâs passion for literature is somewhat early-Keats-like in its naivetĂŠ:
When Mike with the Perm
mouthed he was going cottaging
I pictured a romantic weekend
in the Peak District, wildflowers
crowding a milk jug, secret books
flames licking an open hearth.
Soon the menace of AIDS begins to make its historic presence felt, with Humphreys being warned not to âgo jumping into bed / with someone whoâs flown in from San Franciscoâ, to which his eminently sensible response illustrates his ever-present light touch:
That night
I jump into bed with someone
whoâd caught the bus from Moston.
(âManchester Gay Youth Group, 1983â)
Thinking again of Marr, this reminded me of The Smithsâ similarly bathetic use of place names, as in âWhat do we get for our trouble and pain? Just a rented room in Whalley Rangeâ. A Manchester trait, presumably.
There follows what I took to be a mimetically rapid segue into a less innocent state. The next poem (âThe Cottageâ) makes clear that his previous lexical misapprehension has been thoroughly resolved, describing a scene tense with lustful expectation: âI remember the submarine blip / of dripping water, / the spring-hinged front door openingâ. This time the use of geographical allusion, though still humorous, has a different slant as Humphreys observes some graffiti: âI SUCK COCK NOW / followed by an address in West Didsburyâ. Though he may be new to it, the scene has the air of rehearsed automaticity for its regular participants, and despite his enthralment Humphreys manages to retain his eye (and ear) for the comically incongruous: âa circle jerk / as choreographed as a country dance / at a May Day fairâ.
This is followed by âCanal Street, 1984â, taking us into a club where lurid predators stalk their young prey, one of whom offers the poet a sheepskin coat in return for sex, prompting this laconic intimation of a brutal new reality:
It was November
and I was cold.
Later, the poems become still grimmer, and sometimes more laceratingly upsetting, but Humphreys loses neither his dignity nor his sense of humour as he nails various examples of discrimination from the AIDS era and since. âThe mind gapâ relates a crowded London train journey in which a heavily perfumed stranger, while expressing sympathy for the disease she assumes he must have â presumably on the basis of his âgayâ appearance alone â (âItâs such a tragedy⌠/ your conditionâ), continues to stand on his foot, producing a reaction that once again forces an unexpected laugh from the reader, as Humphreys invokes the over-polite British tendency to say sorry when the other person is the one at fault:
Her heel pins me to the floor
like a shadow. I make a stab at a scream
but all that escapes
is an apology.
The villanelle-like âStatutory leaveâ documents another incident where hostility is masked by politeness, in which Humphreys and his partner are refused service at a restaurant on the grounds of their orientation. The nine-times-repeated quote âYou two gentlemen are going to have to leaveâ rings in the readerâs ears for some time afterwards.
One major strength of the collection is that although the story of Humphreysâ gay evolution forms the backbone, it is given greater depth and scope by the inclusion of many fine poems on other aspects of his experience, such as childhood adventure and risk-taking (âCoalscar Lakeâ) and a sensitivity to nature that brings to mind early Ted Hughes (âStubborn cowâ). In these his style is supple and varied, adapting to each poemâs focus with skill and agility. However, perhaps the best of all is saved to last, returning us to the main theme with a bittersweet, even reckless nostalgia for the golden but tragically deadly age heâs looking back on thirty-odd years later. âReturn of the discotheque dancersâ, with its constant use of the imperative âComeâ, is a clear nod to Ginsbergâs unforgettable paean to casual gay sex âCome All Ye Brave Boysâ, except that the simple addition of âbackâ takes us into a period which Ginsberg and his mid-Seventies co-partyers were still blissfully unaware would ever occur. Humphreysâ âglistening boysâ cannot âreturnâ, for reasons too obvious to state. The poem also recalls the late Oscar Mooreâs memoir A Matter of Life and Death, with its poignant revelling in a world of orgiastic, shirtless, amyl-nitrate-fuelled hedonism, at the very club emphatically and defiantly celebrated in the poemâs (and collectionâs) last three words.
Imbibe the city â its bars and clubs,
its tribes and scars. Refrains that moved us then will tug
the moon. Shed your shirts, your wounded skin,
shatter the glass dance-floor. (âŚ)
Come back, come back â you glistening boys.
Letâs march again at Bang, Scandals, Napoleons,
Spats, Subway, Copaâs and Heaven, Heaven, Heaven!
London Grip Poetry Review – Ian Humphreys
August 3, 2019 by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2019 • Tags: books, Nick Cooke, poetry • 0 Comments
Nick Cooke finds honesty and authenticity in a debut collection by Ian Humphreys
Reading this impressive debut collection in tandem with Johnny Marrâs inspirational memoir Set the Boy Free sent my mind reeling back, albeit along two very different paths, to the Manchester of the last quarter of the twentieth century. During the Nineties the ânâ in the cityâs name became a âdâ â both in the media and in much of the popular imagination. Its raw in-yer-face energy struck me (from my few but memorably intense visits) as a force that lived up to the hype, and more than rivalled London, where the prevailing New-Agey atmosphere was by some lights cooler, but definitely less edgy overall. Humphreysâ book, like Marrâs, largely unfolds against the background of the gradual build-up to that time, focussing on his early life in Manchester over the preceding two decades.
Some of that rawness emerges early on in a disturbing yet hilarious account of his upbringing. âPOP!â refers both to his father and the sound of paternal fists slamming into offspringâs heads, the latter of which becomes more Batmanishly cartoon-like as the poem proceeds. It turns out the situation is Larkinesque in its handing on of inhumanity: the father confesses that his own âIrish fatherâ
but then, with inadvertently deadpan humour, indicates just how smoothly the baton can be passed:
The poem has an ambiguous end, with a teasing enquiry into the nature of revenge and malevolence, as the speaker, clearly going against the violent grain in physical terms at least, announces he never hit his dad
That hint of Faulkner suggests the speakerâs literary aspirations, while the theme of isolation is soon developed, as the poet details his teenage years spent coming to terms with his then-still-marginalised sexual orientation and the ensuing experiences. The title of âAnother boyâs storyâ, dedicated to âall the other voices that spoke up firstâ, references a key literary influence, Edmund White, and the poem goes on to salute two more, Wilde and Baldwin. However, even though he is worldly enough to register and reflect sardonically on a teacherâs homophobia â
it transpires that the young poetâs passion for literature is somewhat early-Keats-like in its naivetĂŠ:
Soon the menace of AIDS begins to make its historic presence felt, with Humphreys being warned not to âgo jumping into bed / with someone whoâs flown in from San Franciscoâ, to which his eminently sensible response illustrates his ever-present light touch:
Thinking again of Marr, this reminded me of The Smithsâ similarly bathetic use of place names, as in âWhat do we get for our trouble and pain? Just a rented room in Whalley Rangeâ. A Manchester trait, presumably.
There follows what I took to be a mimetically rapid segue into a less innocent state. The next poem (âThe Cottageâ) makes clear that his previous lexical misapprehension has been thoroughly resolved, describing a scene tense with lustful expectation: âI remember the submarine blip / of dripping water, / the spring-hinged front door openingâ. This time the use of geographical allusion, though still humorous, has a different slant as Humphreys observes some graffiti: âI SUCK COCK NOW / followed by an address in West Didsburyâ. Though he may be new to it, the scene has the air of rehearsed automaticity for its regular participants, and despite his enthralment Humphreys manages to retain his eye (and ear) for the comically incongruous: âa circle jerk / as choreographed as a country dance / at a May Day fairâ.
This is followed by âCanal Street, 1984â, taking us into a club where lurid predators stalk their young prey, one of whom offers the poet a sheepskin coat in return for sex, prompting this laconic intimation of a brutal new reality:
Later, the poems become still grimmer, and sometimes more laceratingly upsetting, but Humphreys loses neither his dignity nor his sense of humour as he nails various examples of discrimination from the AIDS era and since. âThe mind gapâ relates a crowded London train journey in which a heavily perfumed stranger, while expressing sympathy for the disease she assumes he must have â presumably on the basis of his âgayâ appearance alone â (âItâs such a tragedy⌠/ your conditionâ), continues to stand on his foot, producing a reaction that once again forces an unexpected laugh from the reader, as Humphreys invokes the over-polite British tendency to say sorry when the other person is the one at fault:
The villanelle-like âStatutory leaveâ documents another incident where hostility is masked by politeness, in which Humphreys and his partner are refused service at a restaurant on the grounds of their orientation. The nine-times-repeated quote âYou two gentlemen are going to have to leaveâ rings in the readerâs ears for some time afterwards.
One major strength of the collection is that although the story of Humphreysâ gay evolution forms the backbone, it is given greater depth and scope by the inclusion of many fine poems on other aspects of his experience, such as childhood adventure and risk-taking (âCoalscar Lakeâ) and a sensitivity to nature that brings to mind early Ted Hughes (âStubborn cowâ). In these his style is supple and varied, adapting to each poemâs focus with skill and agility. However, perhaps the best of all is saved to last, returning us to the main theme with a bittersweet, even reckless nostalgia for the golden but tragically deadly age heâs looking back on thirty-odd years later. âReturn of the discotheque dancersâ, with its constant use of the imperative âComeâ, is a clear nod to Ginsbergâs unforgettable paean to casual gay sex âCome All Ye Brave Boysâ, except that the simple addition of âbackâ takes us into a period which Ginsberg and his mid-Seventies co-partyers were still blissfully unaware would ever occur. Humphreysâ âglistening boysâ cannot âreturnâ, for reasons too obvious to state. The poem also recalls the late Oscar Mooreâs memoir A Matter of Life and Death, with its poignant revelling in a world of orgiastic, shirtless, amyl-nitrate-fuelled hedonism, at the very club emphatically and defiantly celebrated in the poemâs (and collectionâs) last three words.