Poetry review â A COMMONPLACE: Stuart Henson reviews an intriguingly different mix of collection & anthology by Jonathan Davidson
A Commonplace
Jonathan Davidson
Smith Doorstop, 2020
ISBN 978-1-912196-33-3
106pp ÂŁ9.95
What do you get if you cross an anthology with a poetry reading? Something, Iâd say, like Jonathan Davidsonâs A Commonplace. Itâs such a simple idea youâre left wondering why it hasnât been done before. The logic works like this: people want to know a bit about where a poem has come from, the nitty-gritty of incident that led to its composition. And poems by different authors often resonate one with the otherâin a kind of call and response. Put that together and you get an entertaining mix of anecdote, discovery and material for discussion.
Davidson wants to tell us about poems he likes, and poems heâs written. Sometimes indeed poems heâs written about poems he likes. So the individual pieces are interspersed with a directorâs commentary, anticipating whatâs coming up and reflecting on whatâs gone before. Often the commentary is supplemented by âfootnotesâ which are usually amusing asidesâthe sort of remarks you might throw away at a reading. (If you happen to have read my review of Davidsonâs critical book On Poetry, youâll know I have reservations about the footnoting. Now and then it gets a bit intenseâlike being in lockdown with half the cast of The News Quiz.) As an added bonus we also get a grid-referenced gazetteer and a bibliography at the end. For further research.
The bookâs subtitle, Apples, Bricks & Other Peopleâs Poems, gives you a fair idea of what youâre going to get, beginning with Richie McCafferyâs âBrickâ and a neat gloss on how a poem might âsay one thing and mean anotherâ. I should declare an interest here. Living as I do on the site of a Victorian brickworks, Iâm keen that the oft-overlooked brick should get its moment in the sun. Iâm partial to the odd sharp poem about an apple too. Davidsonâs own brick poems veer towards the socio-political. The longest, âUtopiaâ, begins with something of a rant:
Itâs an old brick in an old wall along the Old
Main Line Canal a kilometre west of here and I
Take a photo of it, and post the photo, and tweet
The photo and say something suitably ironic
About bricks and walls. I might as well have thrown
Myself in, there and then, because I had betrayed
My people with cheap words and fancy language
And knowing looks and an educated tongue: like:
What I donât know about life isnât worth knowing;
Like: I know so much about what we want and what
They wanted; like: Iâve done so much to get it.
Like fuck I have. And now they talk like the Right
Have won and thatâs not a fucking problem. It is
A fucking problem. This brick stuck in this wall
With its arse showing the clay-cast word Utopia
Is the fucking problem. And you lot reading this
Are the fucking problem.
Now whilst this should go down well at the Lamb & Flag Open Mic, Iâm not quite clear why we, the readers, are a problem. Unless itâs that anyone doing anything so bourgeois as reading a poetry book is by default a candidate for re-education. Frustratingly, the commentary doesnât elucidate. Still, it would break the ice alrightâand get a âconversationâ going.
The poem goes on directly to explain that
The leaves are turning
Early this year and we failed to pick all of the
Beautiful blackberries because we were watching
A long-form drama about some world that doesnât
Exist but would be fun if it did.
Not just reading but watching too much opium-of-the-masses tele! What Comrade Davidson wants is a radical re-appraisal of that word Utopia. It should mean a place without homelessness and food-poverty and fuel-povertyâwhere everyone gets a sweet dark taste âOf the blackberries you pick even when the dusk / Is nearly upon you, and you are tired and aloneâ. I moveâŚ
The same spirit prompts another wish-poem, this time in response to Mick Northâs fine polemic âLandâ which ends with the imperative âDo not let the wicked inherit the earth.â Davidson has been riled by the ostentation of some of the houses he passes on his cycling excursions. Flash wealth is sickening: most of us can agree on that. And at the end the speaker offers the gated householders an opportunity for self-examination and restitution:
But, in time, the owners of these
period properties will be required
to declare themselves, and not
by swinging from a fresh gallows
at a crossroads on the border
of two rural counties,
but by coming with full hands and laying
at the feet of the people all
the wealth they are not due.
Ah! When the revolution comes! Though I fear they may have to be dragged kicking and screaming. As a fully paid-up member of the Brickworkersâ Collective, Iâm sympathetic, but I have to say I prefer his two other brick poems. âBrick Lifeâ begins like one of those old-school homework assignments: imagine youâre a brick and tell the story of whatâs happened in your life. The first six couplets recount the production process with a brick-loverâs relish:
Cut from the clay of the big pit, blade-bitten,
thumped and smacked, stacked up, left for dead
...
A master-class in alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia. And after the firing the bricks
⌠wake in a kind of Hades, our hearts hard,
hollow seeming, and we hold our brittle breath.
If I were a teacher Iâd have to give this one 10/10âfor its sheer imaginative bravura and accomplishment. Interestingly, too, the poem develops a nice ambiguity as it works to its close.
We make the world, we do what weâre told,
go where they place us, in whatever bond,
and build the walls, hold the earth at bay,
culvert the rivers, shoulder the high roads,
tell ourselves we are happy, shout hurrah,
try to move but canât; try to think, canât.
Beyond the enjoyment, the intellectual amusement, of the brick-speak, that last line becomes just a little uncomfortable. The bricks are willing, worthy enough, and the process theyâve been through is terrifying, coercive. But now they are trapped, physically and psychologically. The repetition and the punctuation choke you at the end. At one level this could be the fate of the workers, exploited by their all-powerful âbettersâ. They have each become, partly through their own volition, just another brick in the societal wall. Yet at the same time, the Stakhanovite efforts of the bricks with their song âbuild we, build we, build we now the newâ, their dutiful shouldering of the infrastructure, must surely remind us of the human cost of the Five Year Plans of a Stalinist dictatorship. I feel a bit of dialectic coming on.
The final brick poem âBrickworkâ celebrates the makers, the builders, in a more direct way, using the language of the trades to praise those who are now âdumb or gone away or deadâ, playing gently on the connotations of âvernacularâ in reference to both language and architecture. These are the truly unacknowledged legislators, whose narratives can be read in the lines of the bricks they laid.
And so to the apples. What of them? âApple Pickingâ has a hint of Frost in its early lines: âThey glitter / in the slight breeze. It takes a young man // and a tapered ladder and some nerve / to reach themâ, but it goes its own way, recounting a tale of young love with a perfectly-judged resolution, which I wonât spoil here. âMiss Balcombeâs Orchardâ is darker but draws on the same period of the poetâs life, when, as he explains in the commentary, he was in his late teens and working for the eponymous owner. A death occurs, and as in Frostâs âOut, Out-â the living are powerless to do much more than continue with their tasks. The poemâs effectiveness lies in the authenticity of detail. A line like âA vapour of petrol settled on the morningâ can tell so much.
The selection of work by âOther Peopleâ is, as you would expect, consistently worthwhile. There are outstanding poems from Helen Dunmore, Pauline Stainer, Maura Dooley and Ann Atkinson among themâand almost certainly something that will be new to one or other of us. Davidsonâs comments are mostly straightforward explanations of when or how he encountered the poems and the poets. We learn, for instance, that his first experiences of Paul Muldoon were at a âdullâ reading in Oxford when he was nineteen. He offers his own response âOn, Why Brownlee Leftâ which ploughs a similar furrow. The Muldoon poem is not, as it happens, included, which is a pity. Maybe Faberâs fee was too much. The same is true for âLive Broadcastâ though most readers will have already marked that down as a Larkin knock-off before he fesses up to it in the commentary a couple of pages on.
Of course, thereâs more to this hundred page collection than apples, bricks and smart one-liners. Thereâs a nice example of âthe ubiquitous poem about quadratic equations that troubles every slim volume of contemporary poetryâ, for instance, and a metaphysical examination of the lustful nature of the printed wordâor rather the inky nature of lust. The authorâs parents feature in several poems. My favourite is âA Breakfastâ in which the son is enjoying his un-hurried breakfast alone:
And then you are there,
with a small pan of porridge,
taking your packed lunch from the fridge,
listening to the quiet radio,
reading a library book âŚ
A memory-ghost, I think, but one that reminds me of the wonderful description of Paul Morelâs father in Sons and Lovers, sitting alone by the kitchen range making up his fuses before the dayâs work. There are three short poems about the Civil War, and a number of travel observations that take us from Didcot and Llangollen to Kyiv and VeniceâŚ
In his concluding commentary, Davidson explains that he wants poems to read him. âAnd I want these poems to read you, to say what you might have said or thought.â Leaving aside the rather modish idea of the poems doing the readingâis it simply that he wishes the poems to express his convictions and the thoughts we might have expressed had we but the words?âyou can see where heâs coming from. âAnd while Iâm at it, I ask you to take these poems and use them. By which I mean, share them in private correspondence, speak them in your own accent, compose your own â better â versions of themâ ⌠âThe sharingâs the thing.â
Well, whatâs stopping you? Get involved!
Stuart Henson
A Commonplace
October 20, 2020
Poetry review â A COMMONPLACE: Stuart Henson reviews an intriguingly different mix of collection & anthology by Jonathan Davidson
What do you get if you cross an anthology with a poetry reading? Something, Iâd say, like Jonathan Davidsonâs A Commonplace. Itâs such a simple idea youâre left wondering why it hasnât been done before. The logic works like this: people want to know a bit about where a poem has come from, the nitty-gritty of incident that led to its composition. And poems by different authors often resonate one with the otherâin a kind of call and response. Put that together and you get an entertaining mix of anecdote, discovery and material for discussion.
Davidson wants to tell us about poems he likes, and poems heâs written. Sometimes indeed poems heâs written about poems he likes. So the individual pieces are interspersed with a directorâs commentary, anticipating whatâs coming up and reflecting on whatâs gone before. Often the commentary is supplemented by âfootnotesâ which are usually amusing asidesâthe sort of remarks you might throw away at a reading. (If you happen to have read my review of Davidsonâs critical book On Poetry, youâll know I have reservations about the footnoting. Now and then it gets a bit intenseâlike being in lockdown with half the cast of The News Quiz.) As an added bonus we also get a grid-referenced gazetteer and a bibliography at the end. For further research.
The bookâs subtitle, Apples, Bricks & Other Peopleâs Poems, gives you a fair idea of what youâre going to get, beginning with Richie McCafferyâs âBrickâ and a neat gloss on how a poem might âsay one thing and mean anotherâ. I should declare an interest here. Living as I do on the site of a Victorian brickworks, Iâm keen that the oft-overlooked brick should get its moment in the sun. Iâm partial to the odd sharp poem about an apple too. Davidsonâs own brick poems veer towards the socio-political. The longest, âUtopiaâ, begins with something of a rant:
Now whilst this should go down well at the Lamb & Flag Open Mic, Iâm not quite clear why we, the readers, are a problem. Unless itâs that anyone doing anything so bourgeois as reading a poetry book is by default a candidate for re-education. Frustratingly, the commentary doesnât elucidate. Still, it would break the ice alrightâand get a âconversationâ going.
The poem goes on directly to explain that
Not just reading but watching too much opium-of-the-masses tele! What Comrade Davidson wants is a radical re-appraisal of that word Utopia. It should mean a place without homelessness and food-poverty and fuel-povertyâwhere everyone gets a sweet dark taste âOf the blackberries you pick even when the dusk / Is nearly upon you, and you are tired and aloneâ. I moveâŚ
The same spirit prompts another wish-poem, this time in response to Mick Northâs fine polemic âLandâ which ends with the imperative âDo not let the wicked inherit the earth.â Davidson has been riled by the ostentation of some of the houses he passes on his cycling excursions. Flash wealth is sickening: most of us can agree on that. And at the end the speaker offers the gated householders an opportunity for self-examination and restitution:
Ah! When the revolution comes! Though I fear they may have to be dragged kicking and screaming. As a fully paid-up member of the Brickworkersâ Collective, Iâm sympathetic, but I have to say I prefer his two other brick poems. âBrick Lifeâ begins like one of those old-school homework assignments: imagine youâre a brick and tell the story of whatâs happened in your life. The first six couplets recount the production process with a brick-loverâs relish:
A master-class in alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia. And after the firing the bricks
⌠wake in a kind of Hades, our hearts hard,
hollow seeming, and we hold our brittle breath.
If I were a teacher Iâd have to give this one 10/10âfor its sheer imaginative bravura and accomplishment. Interestingly, too, the poem develops a nice ambiguity as it works to its close.
Beyond the enjoyment, the intellectual amusement, of the brick-speak, that last line becomes just a little uncomfortable. The bricks are willing, worthy enough, and the process theyâve been through is terrifying, coercive. But now they are trapped, physically and psychologically. The repetition and the punctuation choke you at the end. At one level this could be the fate of the workers, exploited by their all-powerful âbettersâ. They have each become, partly through their own volition, just another brick in the societal wall. Yet at the same time, the Stakhanovite efforts of the bricks with their song âbuild we, build we, build we now the newâ, their dutiful shouldering of the infrastructure, must surely remind us of the human cost of the Five Year Plans of a Stalinist dictatorship. I feel a bit of dialectic coming on.
The final brick poem âBrickworkâ celebrates the makers, the builders, in a more direct way, using the language of the trades to praise those who are now âdumb or gone away or deadâ, playing gently on the connotations of âvernacularâ in reference to both language and architecture. These are the truly unacknowledged legislators, whose narratives can be read in the lines of the bricks they laid.
And so to the apples. What of them? âApple Pickingâ has a hint of Frost in its early lines: âThey glitter / in the slight breeze. It takes a young man // and a tapered ladder and some nerve / to reach themâ, but it goes its own way, recounting a tale of young love with a perfectly-judged resolution, which I wonât spoil here. âMiss Balcombeâs Orchardâ is darker but draws on the same period of the poetâs life, when, as he explains in the commentary, he was in his late teens and working for the eponymous owner. A death occurs, and as in Frostâs âOut, Out-â the living are powerless to do much more than continue with their tasks. The poemâs effectiveness lies in the authenticity of detail. A line like âA vapour of petrol settled on the morningâ can tell so much.
The selection of work by âOther Peopleâ is, as you would expect, consistently worthwhile. There are outstanding poems from Helen Dunmore, Pauline Stainer, Maura Dooley and Ann Atkinson among themâand almost certainly something that will be new to one or other of us. Davidsonâs comments are mostly straightforward explanations of when or how he encountered the poems and the poets. We learn, for instance, that his first experiences of Paul Muldoon were at a âdullâ reading in Oxford when he was nineteen. He offers his own response âOn, Why Brownlee Leftâ which ploughs a similar furrow. The Muldoon poem is not, as it happens, included, which is a pity. Maybe Faberâs fee was too much. The same is true for âLive Broadcastâ though most readers will have already marked that down as a Larkin knock-off before he fesses up to it in the commentary a couple of pages on.
Of course, thereâs more to this hundred page collection than apples, bricks and smart one-liners. Thereâs a nice example of âthe ubiquitous poem about quadratic equations that troubles every slim volume of contemporary poetryâ, for instance, and a metaphysical examination of the lustful nature of the printed wordâor rather the inky nature of lust. The authorâs parents feature in several poems. My favourite is âA Breakfastâ in which the son is enjoying his un-hurried breakfast alone:
A memory-ghost, I think, but one that reminds me of the wonderful description of Paul Morelâs father in Sons and Lovers, sitting alone by the kitchen range making up his fuses before the dayâs work. There are three short poems about the Civil War, and a number of travel observations that take us from Didcot and Llangollen to Kyiv and VeniceâŚ
In his concluding commentary, Davidson explains that he wants poems to read him. âAnd I want these poems to read you, to say what you might have said or thought.â Leaving aside the rather modish idea of the poems doing the readingâis it simply that he wishes the poems to express his convictions and the thoughts we might have expressed had we but the words?âyou can see where heâs coming from. âAnd while Iâm at it, I ask you to take these poems and use them. By which I mean, share them in private correspondence, speak them in your own accent, compose your own â better â versions of themâ ⌠âThe sharingâs the thing.â
Well, whatâs stopping you? Get involved!
Stuart Henson