Poetry review â THE SHAKING CITY: Sue Wallace-Shaddad enjoys the interweaving of moods and ideas in Cath Drakeâs new collection
The Shaking City
Cath Drake
Seren
ISBN 978-1-78172-575-7
www.serenbooks.com
72pp ÂŁ9.99
Cath Drakeâs thought-provoking collection is divided into three parts: âThe Shaking City”, âThe Glasshouseâ and âFar From Homeâ – the last of which is inspired by her native Australia.
In her first poem, âSleeping in a Shaking Cityâ, Drake starts with quite an assertive tone âIâll tell you how there is one chair then anotherâ and ends with a couplet including âthere must be somewhere in this town that does not shudderâ. This poem sets up a questioning of the foundations of our lives which threads through the first part of the collection. On the one hand, poems feature domestic details of houses and furniture and on the other hand, we are taken into the surreal. In her second poem âFurnitureâ, the furniture seems to take on a somewhat chaotic life of its own. This is all in the context of âa tower block of a city that is shakingâ.
Drake excels at drawing lively portraits in âShaky School Albumâ, a sequence of fourteen poems linking back to childhood, school days and teenage memories. Each poem is a vignette crafted around one interpretation of shaking. Interestingly the poems are almost all different lengths ranging from eleven lines to eighteen lines. This seems to reflect the slightly chaotic nature of that time of life. It is as if she riffs off the word âshakingâ in this sequence. At five years old, she might be waiting for âthe shaking inside me to rattle openâ in âA Corner Block Vigil in Cowboy Hatâ. In âMouseyâs Mansionâ she realises the way she and her friends âshook/our energy all over the placeâ was not a meaningful or lasting life passion. In âBorn with itâ, she reflects on âthe glowâ of a fellow schoolgirl who still glows with good deeds, three children later, saying âsheâd make us all milkshakes with a melting smileâ.
âNo-Shake Mohawkâ is a wonderful description of a bit of a rebel â âit was/as if he was wearing a swear wordâ â who we hear becomes a âcrisis managerâ as an adult. And in âMiddle Age Karmaâ, the narrator remembers a school ball:
I was shaky drunk and weepy in a mauve ball gown
The poem ends:
It seemed karmic that in our school reunion photo
he was the middle-aged spunk, shining in grey hair.
Interspersed with what I will call Drakeâs âshakingâ poems, there are poems which raise environmental concerns. âHow I Hold the World in This Climate Emergencyâ is an example. Drake uses physical images here to reveal how she feels: âSometimes I am bent over with the sheer weight of the worldâ. Her repetition of âsometimesâ at the start of each stanza drums home the way environmental concerns pervade her being:
Sometimes my body is a crash mat for world. I want to say
âIâm sorry Iâm sorry!â but donât say it aloud.
âDhanakosa, Scotlandâ, on the other hand, comes across as a celebration of nature. Drake describes the scene of a loch and moorland. The mist is âsprawled across the armchair/ of the hilltopsâ and she writes of how the mist âmade the impossible seem possible, opposites visible.â I feel this is a seminal line in the collection: Drake often re-engineers what we might see and explores the unexpected turns inherent in life. The next poem âThe Flowers of our Cityâ also celebrates nature, in this case the flowers which bloom in odd places in the city, but touches on despair, without explaining anything more.
In the second part of the collection, Drake includes a range of prose poems. Furniture is featured again in âRolodexâ, in the form of âold-style dark jarrah desksâ. This poem becomes rather surreal with a possible ghost and the sight of her âname and number in thick marker pen and capital lettersâ.
I very much enjoyed âParty Invitationsâ which captured the angst involved in throwing a party. The sentences âThe three desirable people huddle and when you turn around theyâre gone. You wonder how this will affect your social standing.â sum up the fragility of the narratorâs social life: what seemed possible (a successful party) has become impossible.
The sonnet âA Man my Father Played Golf withâ uses striking imagery. Alliteration and assonance to describe Mr Harris who
played golf with my father in puff-ball plaids, his podge
of feet stuffed in fringed golf shoes, his face a basketball
caught in an exhaust pipe about to burst
âThe Circle Lineâ, in quatrains, beautifully captures an unending journey. There is very little punctuation and each stanza has enjambment with the first line of the next stanza, keeping the flow of the poem continuous.
The third section of the collection has a number of poignant poems. âThe Beforeâ tells of a grandmotherâs memories of meeting her loved one in 1925; the memories are held inside a jarrah box, how he was âbefore the shrapnel ate him awayâ. âThe Clock in Aunt Annaâs Loungeâ has a clock almost built into the structure of the house, which comes to life: ‘It knew your private ghosts by name’. It is witness to family history but also to grief in the last stanza.
Creatures play a surreal role in this section. âThe Drakeâ (which of course alludes to the poetâs name) has a wonderful first line that draws the reader in : âNow that I think about it, there was always a swampy smellâ . The drake is an imaginary companion, but one who often gets in the way. There are two poems involving a bunyip â a mythical Australian creature who is said to live in swamps. The imaginative âBunyip in the Kitchenâ brings âshakingâ back into the picture:
a wild roar if he jerks awake which could shake
the street with fright.
âBunyip on the End of My Bedâ delivers an environmental message about âthree hundred millions of tonsâ of plastic, in the guise of a the bunyip telling his own kind of bedtime story. This is typical of the slant way that Drake brings in serious messages. In âWhen the Insects Disappearedâ, the poem charts the increasing silence and shortage of foods. The poem ends with âThere didnât/ seem to be anyone answering back.â
Drakes speaks of more than one world in âRubber Dinghy with Glass-bottom Bucket, Rottnestâ:
and how easy to slip between them, unmoor your mind
and live among the strange and shining.
I feel this describes exactly how we can enjoy the vibrant poems in this collection.
Sue Wallace-Shaddad
London Grip Poetry Review – Cath Drake
October 6, 2020
Poetry review â THE SHAKING CITY: Sue Wallace-Shaddad enjoys the interweaving of moods and ideas in Cath Drakeâs new collection
Cath Drakeâs thought-provoking collection is divided into three parts: âThe Shaking City”, âThe Glasshouseâ and âFar From Homeâ – the last of which is inspired by her native Australia.
In her first poem, âSleeping in a Shaking Cityâ, Drake starts with quite an assertive tone âIâll tell you how there is one chair then anotherâ and ends with a couplet including âthere must be somewhere in this town that does not shudderâ. This poem sets up a questioning of the foundations of our lives which threads through the first part of the collection. On the one hand, poems feature domestic details of houses and furniture and on the other hand, we are taken into the surreal. In her second poem âFurnitureâ, the furniture seems to take on a somewhat chaotic life of its own. This is all in the context of âa tower block of a city that is shakingâ.
Drake excels at drawing lively portraits in âShaky School Albumâ, a sequence of fourteen poems linking back to childhood, school days and teenage memories. Each poem is a vignette crafted around one interpretation of shaking. Interestingly the poems are almost all different lengths ranging from eleven lines to eighteen lines. This seems to reflect the slightly chaotic nature of that time of life. It is as if she riffs off the word âshakingâ in this sequence. At five years old, she might be waiting for âthe shaking inside me to rattle openâ in âA Corner Block Vigil in Cowboy Hatâ. In âMouseyâs Mansionâ she realises the way she and her friends âshook/our energy all over the placeâ was not a meaningful or lasting life passion. In âBorn with itâ, she reflects on âthe glowâ of a fellow schoolgirl who still glows with good deeds, three children later, saying âsheâd make us all milkshakes with a melting smileâ.
âNo-Shake Mohawkâ is a wonderful description of a bit of a rebel â âit was/as if he was wearing a swear wordâ â who we hear becomes a âcrisis managerâ as an adult. And in âMiddle Age Karmaâ, the narrator remembers a school ball:
The poem ends:
Interspersed with what I will call Drakeâs âshakingâ poems, there are poems which raise environmental concerns. âHow I Hold the World in This Climate Emergencyâ is an example. Drake uses physical images here to reveal how she feels: âSometimes I am bent over with the sheer weight of the worldâ. Her repetition of âsometimesâ at the start of each stanza drums home the way environmental concerns pervade her being:
âDhanakosa, Scotlandâ, on the other hand, comes across as a celebration of nature. Drake describes the scene of a loch and moorland. The mist is âsprawled across the armchair/ of the hilltopsâ and she writes of how the mist âmade the impossible seem possible, opposites visible.â I feel this is a seminal line in the collection: Drake often re-engineers what we might see and explores the unexpected turns inherent in life. The next poem âThe Flowers of our Cityâ also celebrates nature, in this case the flowers which bloom in odd places in the city, but touches on despair, without explaining anything more.
In the second part of the collection, Drake includes a range of prose poems. Furniture is featured again in âRolodexâ, in the form of âold-style dark jarrah desksâ. This poem becomes rather surreal with a possible ghost and the sight of her âname and number in thick marker pen and capital lettersâ.
I very much enjoyed âParty Invitationsâ which captured the angst involved in throwing a party. The sentences âThe three desirable people huddle and when you turn around theyâre gone. You wonder how this will affect your social standing.â sum up the fragility of the narratorâs social life: what seemed possible (a successful party) has become impossible.
The sonnet âA Man my Father Played Golf withâ uses striking imagery. Alliteration and assonance to describe Mr Harris who
âThe Circle Lineâ, in quatrains, beautifully captures an unending journey. There is very little punctuation and each stanza has enjambment with the first line of the next stanza, keeping the flow of the poem continuous.
The third section of the collection has a number of poignant poems. âThe Beforeâ tells of a grandmotherâs memories of meeting her loved one in 1925; the memories are held inside a jarrah box, how he was âbefore the shrapnel ate him awayâ. âThe Clock in Aunt Annaâs Loungeâ has a clock almost built into the structure of the house, which comes to life: ‘It knew your private ghosts by name’. It is witness to family history but also to grief in the last stanza.
Creatures play a surreal role in this section. âThe Drakeâ (which of course alludes to the poetâs name) has a wonderful first line that draws the reader in : âNow that I think about it, there was always a swampy smellâ . The drake is an imaginary companion, but one who often gets in the way. There are two poems involving a bunyip â a mythical Australian creature who is said to live in swamps. The imaginative âBunyip in the Kitchenâ brings âshakingâ back into the picture:
âBunyip on the End of My Bedâ delivers an environmental message about âthree hundred millions of tonsâ of plastic, in the guise of a the bunyip telling his own kind of bedtime story. This is typical of the slant way that Drake brings in serious messages. In âWhen the Insects Disappearedâ, the poem charts the increasing silence and shortage of foods. The poem ends with âThere didnât/ seem to be anyone answering back.â
Drakes speaks of more than one world in âRubber Dinghy with Glass-bottom Bucket, Rottnestâ:
I feel this describes exactly how we can enjoy the vibrant poems in this collection.
Sue Wallace-Shaddad