Leah Fritz identifies with Lisa Kellyās poems about hearing loss
A Map Towards Fluency
Lisa Kelly
Carcanet
ISBN-13: 978-1784108403
100 pp Ā£9.99.
Firstly, Iām deaf on my left side as Lisa Kelly is, and weāve joked about that. She is also right-eared. I usually sit at the Torriano Meeting House up front so that my one ear is given full hearing, and I strain to watch lips. Iāve never written about this lack, but Iām glad Kelly has done.
Secondly, I didnāt have a mother who spoke Danish, as Lisa Kelly did. She couldnāt understand that language, partly because of her lack of hearing. Occasionally, my mother spoke Yiddish, when she didnāt want me to know what she was saying. I never caught that language, either.
What I like especially is Lisa Kellyās poem about sitting naked for artists, as an artistās model. āLife Modelā begins,
I canāt look him in the eye because Iām naked.
And I canāt look down because heās naked.
And in the second stanza:
My back is skin-to-skin with his back;
thereās not a cigarette paper between us,
and I curl my legs around myself
and try to look like the statue of the Little Mermaid
and create interesting contours,
and stare out motionless at the sea of blank faces.
She goes on about her partner who is an artist and doesnāt understand anything about how she feelsā¦well, thatās almost the run of the book, how she feelsā¦the run of any poetās collection.
Hereās one about her problem with her ears: the second stanza goes
The Christmas cracker joke you told,
What did a fish say when he swam
Into a wall? has an in-built sinker,
if not the right line, hooking codswallop,ā¦
What she heard is ābā instead of ādā in that word.
And I much like āAubade for an Artistā, which ends:
Of course the morning came; it always does,
but before was an evening, and it was
such an evening I felt already afraid
of morning before the light began to fade.
Lisa Kelly is clearly an artist and very definitely a poet. She has divided her collection into several parts: Scale and Accuracy, Coordinates, Orientation, Projection, Navigation, Legend and Neatline. Kelly is upset by the functional waste of animals, the remains of which are listed in āFragmentation: Top Ten Objects, Grant Museum of Zoologyā. āThe Negus Collection of Bisected Headsā goes thus:
Chimp, wallaby, sloth, seal, pangolin
lemur, wolf fish, shrew in collection
Negus specimens at the Royal College of Surgeons.
Negus worked on anatomy of larynx in animals and humans
may remind you of artist Damien
cut in two to display nose and throat structure, brain;
beautifully presented specimens.
Who can blame her for being upset?
Kellyās poetry can be brilliant, but thereās a bit too much of it here ā as there would be in a first collection assembled too late in a poetās career which comprises both the brilliant and the self-consciously artistic. I do look forward to the next collection. But this one is very good, for all its occasional pretensions.
London Grip Poetry Review – Lisa Kelly
September 8, 2019 by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2019 • Tags: books, Leah Fritz, poetry • 0 Comments
Leah Fritz identifies with Lisa Kellyās poems about hearing loss
Firstly, Iām deaf on my left side as Lisa Kelly is, and weāve joked about that. She is also right-eared. I usually sit at the Torriano Meeting House up front so that my one ear is given full hearing, and I strain to watch lips. Iāve never written about this lack, but Iām glad Kelly has done.
Secondly, I didnāt have a mother who spoke Danish, as Lisa Kelly did. She couldnāt understand that language, partly because of her lack of hearing. Occasionally, my mother spoke Yiddish, when she didnāt want me to know what she was saying. I never caught that language, either.
What I like especially is Lisa Kellyās poem about sitting naked for artists, as an artistās model. āLife Modelā begins,
And in the second stanza:
She goes on about her partner who is an artist and doesnāt understand anything about how she feelsā¦well, thatās almost the run of the book, how she feelsā¦the run of any poetās collection.
Hereās one about her problem with her ears: the second stanza goes
What she heard is ābā instead of ādā in that word.
And I much like āAubade for an Artistā, which ends:
Lisa Kelly is clearly an artist and very definitely a poet. She has divided her collection into several parts: Scale and Accuracy, Coordinates, Orientation, Projection, Navigation, Legend and Neatline. Kelly is upset by the functional waste of animals, the remains of which are listed in āFragmentation: Top Ten Objects, Grant Museum of Zoologyā. āThe Negus Collection of Bisected Headsā goes thus:
Who can blame her for being upset?
Kellyās poetry can be brilliant, but thereās a bit too much of it here ā as there would be in a first collection assembled too late in a poetās career which comprises both the brilliant and the self-consciously artistic. I do look forward to the next collection. But this one is very good, for all its occasional pretensions.