Poetry review â PLANES FLYING OVER: Stephen Claughton discusses Robert Ettyâs latest collection
Planes Flying Over
Robert Etty
Shoestring Press
ISBN 978-1-912524-70-9
ÂŁ10.00
Robert Ettyâs latest collection is very much up to the minute with badgers that âignore social distancing guidelinesâ and an old watch âself-restarting shamefacedly / as if itâs heard that lockdownâs unlockingâ; but the poem that most struck a chord with me in relation to our current plight was one about a power cut in a local chemistâs shop:
Power being grantedâs taken for granted,
acknowledged only when it wonât jump at
the finger snap of a switch or a socket.
Right now, for instance, no one can spend,
and purchasingâs the spice of life, that gives it
all its flavour. Tills have ceased changing,
purses have clamped, and jaws have fallen open.
(âPowerless in Town at Half-past Nineâ)
For a brief moment, this foreshadows the problems that pandemic lockdown has caused our fragile, service-based economy (truly, a nation of shopkeepers).
Etty inhabits the ordinary world, in which people email and Skype and where the land is worked by John Deere and New Holland tractors. What he looks for is the unusual in the everyday. The first poem in the book, âUnlikely Weather on the Marsh in Marchâ, describes an unseasonably warm week in spring:
No-out-yet leaves twitched and stretched in surprise,
mud steamed and dried to an August-type ochre,
blue sky balanced on Somercotes spire,
and March faced an identity crisis.
Even non-events are noteworthy, as in âON THIS SITE on June 16th 1452 Nothing Happenedâ:
If it werenât for this plaque on the terraced house front
on 77 Sixhills Road, no one
would be aware. So many things happen
everywhere itâs refreshing to learn that
here nothing did.
What counts as unusual may sometimes depend simply on Ettyâs off-beat way of looking:
On the Quiet Floor in Room 200
the standby light, which has stood by all night
in televisual companionship,
dims remotelessly at 4 a.m.
as a new dawn discovers the curtains
donât fit and sidles in at the edges.
(âA Dawn Chorus Heard from a Budget Hotel Very Close to the A34â)
The flatness of Ettyâs Lincolnshire home territory makes the sky a dominant feature and both the weather and birds figure prominently in his poetry. But there are badgers and foxes, too. By writing about them in human terms, Etty doesnât so much anthropomorphise his animals, as point to their difference by comically applying human criteria. In âAsking Foxesâ, two countrymen argue about which of two foxes is the dog and which the vixen:
. . . Short of catching up
with both foxes and risking offence by staring hard,
or smiling, excusing yourself and asking
a gender-stereotypical question
like âWhich of you puts the carcases out?â
or âWhoâs knitting bedsocks out of couch grass?â,
itâs difficult to be sure.
The title poem, âPlanes Flying Overâ, is from the second section of the book, which deals primarily with narrative and reminiscence. In it, he recalls spending time in his childhood lying on his back, scouring Lincolnshire skies âthe blues of Humbrol paint lidsâ for aircraft from RAF Binbrook, and sets this against memories of feeding hens with his father:
. . . When theyâd gulped down
the bread or rind, theyâd go back to scratting
at the bald earth, scraping for worms or shoots
that werenât there, stabbing between their claws.
Their constant activity is no more productive than Ettyâs supine plane-spotting, but they canât help it:
Iâm listening now, and theyâre still explaining
how these days you need to keep doing and trying
because if you stop thereâll be nothing.
There they are, under a wide sky near Binbrook,
scratting the same few square yards.
Etty himself has wider horizons. The section ends away from Lincolnshire in Boscastle, Burford and finally New Zealand.
The third section of the book is predominantly about characters: Grace, whoâs early for everything, because sheâs late fulfilling her life; Scott, who canât fix a date at the bank, because the harvest might be due; âEx-truck driver Douglasâ fretting about potholes outside his house; Daniel, who leaves his wife sleeping, as he drives off into a new life, wondering how sheâll react when she wakes; or the eccentric Miss Mikkelsen, who regularly holds up queues with her fumbling and around whom myths of a glamorous early life have accrued.
Ettyâs poetry is characterised by its close attention to detail, but what marks the poems out most is their playfulness. Right from the beginning, he subverts our expectations. While other poets might go for enigmatic titles and punch-line endings, his first poem is the self-explanatory âUnlikely Weather on the Marsh in Marchâ, which finishes with the parenthetical: â(A poem about Sunday follows below)â. Some of his titles, such as âA Dawn Chorus âŚâ quoted above, are almost pedantically specific (e.g. âFour Sentences About Weather and Pigeons Soon After Dawn in Januaryâ, or âAfter Turning out the Bedside Lamp, 7th May 2019â, or âDecember 30th, 15.50 Approximatelyâ). The splendidly surreal opening of another poem:
It hadnât been clever to drive the whole way
to my grandparentsâ cottage (the one that blew down)
via Brigsley and Ashby-cum-Fenby back lane
with a plastic jug kettle in my hand,
but by five Iâd arrived âŚ
is given away by its title, âA Short Dream with a Kettleâ, although that may be better than a âthen-I-woke-upâ ending. Later, Etty blindsides us by inserting among a series of poems about childhood reminiscences, one that describes him queuing for a donkey ride behind âgirls in Frozen T-shirtsâ, so itâs not about his childhood (âIâve looked 70 plus ever since I passed 60â), or is it? No spoilers here, other than the one that Etty himself provides in the title, âSeaside Story, or Imagining Donkeysâ.
The language, too, is playful. A favourite trick is to juxtapose the same words used differently (âshop assistants decline to assistâ, âat traffic lights that donât lighten it [i.e. the traffic]â; âthe ghost of the thought of a ghostâ; âwhose mindâs a black hole of black hole informationâ; âpatients patiently queuingâ). This could be a useful way of reviving dead metaphors, but itâs used so frequently that the trick becomes more a tic and I began to wish that Etty had rationed himself a little more. Itâs noticeable that this mannerism occurs less frequently, if at all, in poems about the past or other places, as if Etty were using it to spice up familiar territory that may have become a little too familiar.
In the final section of the book, Etty gives his humour free rein with a poem about misheard names that stick and another about Phil Baddeley, whoâs tired of being told heâll feel better soon. More general misunderstandings are the subject of âGiven Timeâ, which appears to be about a Skype call, and â04.30: Something not Understoodâ, prompted by a radio programme about George Herbert, the inversion of which could be about tuning into snatches of all-night radio. âSome Facts about False Impressionismâ might be to do with pretentiousness in the arts, the loss of a common culture, slap-dash social media, or all three. The fact that Iâm unable to pin the poems down precisely may be part of the point.
Puzzling aside, Ettyâs poetry is generally marked by its accessibility. The quirky humour in this very enjoyable book is guaranteed to put a smile on your face during these testing times.
London Grip Poetry Review – Robert Etty
October 8, 2020
Poetry review â PLANES FLYING OVER: Stephen Claughton discusses Robert Ettyâs latest collection
Robert Ettyâs latest collection is very much up to the minute with badgers that âignore social distancing guidelinesâ and an old watch âself-restarting shamefacedly / as if itâs heard that lockdownâs unlockingâ; but the poem that most struck a chord with me in relation to our current plight was one about a power cut in a local chemistâs shop:
Power being grantedâs taken for granted, acknowledged only when it wonât jump at the finger snap of a switch or a socket. Right now, for instance, no one can spend, and purchasingâs the spice of life, that gives it all its flavour. Tills have ceased changing, purses have clamped, and jaws have fallen open. (âPowerless in Town at Half-past Nineâ)For a brief moment, this foreshadows the problems that pandemic lockdown has caused our fragile, service-based economy (truly, a nation of shopkeepers).
Etty inhabits the ordinary world, in which people email and Skype and where the land is worked by John Deere and New Holland tractors. What he looks for is the unusual in the everyday. The first poem in the book, âUnlikely Weather on the Marsh in Marchâ, describes an unseasonably warm week in spring:
Even non-events are noteworthy, as in âON THIS SITE on June 16th 1452 Nothing Happenedâ:
What counts as unusual may sometimes depend simply on Ettyâs off-beat way of looking:
On the Quiet Floor in Room 200 the standby light, which has stood by all night in televisual companionship, dims remotelessly at 4 a.m. as a new dawn discovers the curtains donât fit and sidles in at the edges. (âA Dawn Chorus Heard from a Budget Hotel Very Close to the A34â)The flatness of Ettyâs Lincolnshire home territory makes the sky a dominant feature and both the weather and birds figure prominently in his poetry. But there are badgers and foxes, too. By writing about them in human terms, Etty doesnât so much anthropomorphise his animals, as point to their difference by comically applying human criteria. In âAsking Foxesâ, two countrymen argue about which of two foxes is the dog and which the vixen:
The title poem, âPlanes Flying Overâ, is from the second section of the book, which deals primarily with narrative and reminiscence. In it, he recalls spending time in his childhood lying on his back, scouring Lincolnshire skies âthe blues of Humbrol paint lidsâ for aircraft from RAF Binbrook, and sets this against memories of feeding hens with his father:
Their constant activity is no more productive than Ettyâs supine plane-spotting, but they canât help it:
Etty himself has wider horizons. The section ends away from Lincolnshire in Boscastle, Burford and finally New Zealand.
The third section of the book is predominantly about characters: Grace, whoâs early for everything, because sheâs late fulfilling her life; Scott, who canât fix a date at the bank, because the harvest might be due; âEx-truck driver Douglasâ fretting about potholes outside his house; Daniel, who leaves his wife sleeping, as he drives off into a new life, wondering how sheâll react when she wakes; or the eccentric Miss Mikkelsen, who regularly holds up queues with her fumbling and around whom myths of a glamorous early life have accrued.
Ettyâs poetry is characterised by its close attention to detail, but what marks the poems out most is their playfulness. Right from the beginning, he subverts our expectations. While other poets might go for enigmatic titles and punch-line endings, his first poem is the self-explanatory âUnlikely Weather on the Marsh in Marchâ, which finishes with the parenthetical: â(A poem about Sunday follows below)â. Some of his titles, such as âA Dawn Chorus âŚâ quoted above, are almost pedantically specific (e.g. âFour Sentences About Weather and Pigeons Soon After Dawn in Januaryâ, or âAfter Turning out the Bedside Lamp, 7th May 2019â, or âDecember 30th, 15.50 Approximatelyâ). The splendidly surreal opening of another poem:
is given away by its title, âA Short Dream with a Kettleâ, although that may be better than a âthen-I-woke-upâ ending. Later, Etty blindsides us by inserting among a series of poems about childhood reminiscences, one that describes him queuing for a donkey ride behind âgirls in Frozen T-shirtsâ, so itâs not about his childhood (âIâve looked 70 plus ever since I passed 60â), or is it? No spoilers here, other than the one that Etty himself provides in the title, âSeaside Story, or Imagining Donkeysâ.
The language, too, is playful. A favourite trick is to juxtapose the same words used differently (âshop assistants decline to assistâ, âat traffic lights that donât lighten it [i.e. the traffic]â; âthe ghost of the thought of a ghostâ; âwhose mindâs a black hole of black hole informationâ; âpatients patiently queuingâ). This could be a useful way of reviving dead metaphors, but itâs used so frequently that the trick becomes more a tic and I began to wish that Etty had rationed himself a little more. Itâs noticeable that this mannerism occurs less frequently, if at all, in poems about the past or other places, as if Etty were using it to spice up familiar territory that may have become a little too familiar.
In the final section of the book, Etty gives his humour free rein with a poem about misheard names that stick and another about Phil Baddeley, whoâs tired of being told heâll feel better soon. More general misunderstandings are the subject of âGiven Timeâ, which appears to be about a Skype call, and â04.30: Something not Understoodâ, prompted by a radio programme about George Herbert, the inversion of which could be about tuning into snatches of all-night radio. âSome Facts about False Impressionismâ might be to do with pretentiousness in the arts, the loss of a common culture, slap-dash social media, or all three. The fact that Iâm unable to pin the poems down precisely may be part of the point.
Puzzling aside, Ettyâs poetry is generally marked by its accessibility. The quirky humour in this very enjoyable book is guaranteed to put a smile on your face during these testing times.
Stephen Claughton