Poetry review – COPING STONES: Stephen Claughton enjoys some adroit wordplay and wit in Richie McCafferyâs new collection
Coping Stones
Richie McCaffery
FRAS Publications
ISBN 978-0-9927298-9-9
ÂŁ8.00
Although only four of the poems in Richie McCafferyâs new pamphlet actually mention the pandemic, itâs hard not to wonder if the opening, title poem isnât a commentary on âbuild back betterâ. Remembering having seen âthe foundations / and crypt of a medieval church / built from rubble of a Roman templeâ, the poet imagines making similar use of the coping stones from the boundary wall of an estate, âshould / these high walls fallâ, âto make a home // where we would weather it outâ. The image is cemented by the implied pun on âcopingâ.
The poem that follows, âAnchorâ, which is explicitly about Covid, also rests on a pun, this time visual. Cutting his wifeâs hair in lockdown (which may itself be a play on words), ârusset curls all over the patio â left / them for the birds and their nestsâ, heâs struck by the fact âthat they all spelled / the initial of your first name, âSâ for âStefââ, which in turn reminds him of an S-shaped anchor plate:
securing a steel beam that gives a spine
to a weak edifice and how you in your way
go through life, doing the same.
Itâs a touching tribute. McCaffery is always on the lookout for connections. They can spark off one another quite dazzlingly, as with the red admiral in âSermonâ:
It perches with wings
closed in a namaste
but the wind keeps
prising it open like pages
in a book before the spineâs broken.
The stained glass of those wings
takes me into the church where
a bible with its hinges cracked
is spreadeagled on the lectern
at the same old passage.
Not all the imagery comes off quite so well. In âBack to schoolâ, I found the play on âbluntedâ and âsharpâ in relation to a memory of photographs taken in front of an old grindstone rather laboured and in âAbbeyâ I wasnât convinced by the idea of the wheel coming full circle at 33? rpm.
The conceits work best when they involve unexpected leaps of the imagination. In âThe crabâ, a man takes a long run off a short pier, as it were, only deciding against suicide when:
From his vantage he saw a large crab
sidle from the cover of one stone to another â
vulnerable in the open only for a moment
like a thought had and thought better of.
And in âWastedâ:
I meet an old friend in the street.
Heâs coked up and Iâm drunk.
. . .
Weâre two ambulances
on blue lights and sirens
passing in opposite directions
on a busy highway
but still bothering to wave
to each other.
Like âThe inverted ventriloquistâ (âMost of my peers threw their voices far, ⌠But I was a different kind of artist, / trained for years to plunge my voice / back down deep inside meâ), thereâs something of the contrarian about McCaffery. In âThe most beautifulâ, it isnât the sight of âa ballet of swansâ that impresses him, but a high-tide line the next day âof all the shed down feathers, / one swan dead of exhaustionâ. And when, in âVocabularyâ, he says of the notebooks he stole from school and still uses:
The only difference is a bit of sunning,
the staples gone rusty
and the writing somehow
more legible but making less sense
Itâs so different from most peopleâs experience that Iâm not sure I even believe him.
I wouldnât take too literally either the claim in the same poem that: âSchool reports always said / you showed promise and like all / promises you never kept itâ. In someone with a PhD and a successful career in poetry, this sounds like false modesty, as does his chance encounter with an old teacher in âMr Fleetâ (who appropriately says, âTime fliesâ): âhis waiting wife / is used to this sort of thing, the once bright / meeting him dulled, and sheâs keen to get onâ. (Pitting âkeenâ against âdulledâ in that way is typical of his writing.)
Beneath the surface brilliance of these poems is a malaise that is hard to pin down, although itâs most explicitly voiced in âBearingsâ (âHere I am in my mid-thirties, lost again / even though you know my locationâ). âRosy applesâ is about the best friend whom he saved from choking on a sweet that âfell â / bagatelle-like â down his windpipeâ, now no longer touch, but âbig up in management, doing wellâ, and âFast carâ is about bumping into another successful, former schoolmate, who says he has:
⌠got himself a trade and now heâs driving
a sports car. And the swots like myself
who went to university are on the buses.
This might suggest a feeling of having lost out, except that the poet clearly has different values: âI never understood fast cars, you want to show / them off. But put your foot down and youâre gone.â
Perhaps itâs the âbills / that keep us downâ (in âHeatâ), or an early-onset, mid-life crisis, or just that, as McCaffery has said, the pandemic has darkened the background of the poems. This darkness is a matter of subject rather than mood. The poems derive their distinctive style from their self-assured clarity and wit, which saves them from any hint of mawkishness. The final poem, âLetterkennyâ, begins solemnly enough:
Dad really liked the deference for the dead,
the car corteges that went on for a mile.
But ends with a wry joke, when after leaving their meals half eaten in a cafĂŠ to go outside and pay their respects to a passing hearse, the poet notices a hardware shop across the road:
In the window was a hand-painted sign
saying Everything Must Go. Last Chance!
While apparently uninterested in form, McCaffery has all the wit and delight in wordplay of an Elizabethan poet and although the impulse behind the poems may be too cerebral for someÂŹâmore effect than affectâthere is a lot to admire and enjoy in this new pamphlet.
London Grip Poetry Review – Richie McCaffery
June 6, 2021
Poetry review – COPING STONES: Stephen Claughton enjoys some adroit wordplay and wit in Richie McCafferyâs new collection
Although only four of the poems in Richie McCafferyâs new pamphlet actually mention the pandemic, itâs hard not to wonder if the opening, title poem isnât a commentary on âbuild back betterâ. Remembering having seen âthe foundations / and crypt of a medieval church / built from rubble of a Roman templeâ, the poet imagines making similar use of the coping stones from the boundary wall of an estate, âshould / these high walls fallâ, âto make a home // where we would weather it outâ. The image is cemented by the implied pun on âcopingâ.
The poem that follows, âAnchorâ, which is explicitly about Covid, also rests on a pun, this time visual. Cutting his wifeâs hair in lockdown (which may itself be a play on words), ârusset curls all over the patio â left / them for the birds and their nestsâ, heâs struck by the fact âthat they all spelled / the initial of your first name, âSâ for âStefââ, which in turn reminds him of an S-shaped anchor plate:
Itâs a touching tribute. McCaffery is always on the lookout for connections. They can spark off one another quite dazzlingly, as with the red admiral in âSermonâ:
Not all the imagery comes off quite so well. In âBack to schoolâ, I found the play on âbluntedâ and âsharpâ in relation to a memory of photographs taken in front of an old grindstone rather laboured and in âAbbeyâ I wasnât convinced by the idea of the wheel coming full circle at 33? rpm.
The conceits work best when they involve unexpected leaps of the imagination. In âThe crabâ, a man takes a long run off a short pier, as it were, only deciding against suicide when:
And in âWastedâ:
Like âThe inverted ventriloquistâ (âMost of my peers threw their voices far, ⌠But I was a different kind of artist, / trained for years to plunge my voice / back down deep inside meâ), thereâs something of the contrarian about McCaffery. In âThe most beautifulâ, it isnât the sight of âa ballet of swansâ that impresses him, but a high-tide line the next day âof all the shed down feathers, / one swan dead of exhaustionâ. And when, in âVocabularyâ, he says of the notebooks he stole from school and still uses:
Itâs so different from most peopleâs experience that Iâm not sure I even believe him.
I wouldnât take too literally either the claim in the same poem that: âSchool reports always said / you showed promise and like all / promises you never kept itâ. In someone with a PhD and a successful career in poetry, this sounds like false modesty, as does his chance encounter with an old teacher in âMr Fleetâ (who appropriately says, âTime fliesâ): âhis waiting wife / is used to this sort of thing, the once bright / meeting him dulled, and sheâs keen to get onâ. (Pitting âkeenâ against âdulledâ in that way is typical of his writing.)
Beneath the surface brilliance of these poems is a malaise that is hard to pin down, although itâs most explicitly voiced in âBearingsâ (âHere I am in my mid-thirties, lost again / even though you know my locationâ). âRosy applesâ is about the best friend whom he saved from choking on a sweet that âfell â / bagatelle-like â down his windpipeâ, now no longer touch, but âbig up in management, doing wellâ, and âFast carâ is about bumping into another successful, former schoolmate, who says he has:
This might suggest a feeling of having lost out, except that the poet clearly has different values: âI never understood fast cars, you want to show / them off. But put your foot down and youâre gone.â
Perhaps itâs the âbills / that keep us downâ (in âHeatâ), or an early-onset, mid-life crisis, or just that, as McCaffery has said, the pandemic has darkened the background of the poems. This darkness is a matter of subject rather than mood. The poems derive their distinctive style from their self-assured clarity and wit, which saves them from any hint of mawkishness. The final poem, âLetterkennyâ, begins solemnly enough:
But ends with a wry joke, when after leaving their meals half eaten in a cafĂŠ to go outside and pay their respects to a passing hearse, the poet notices a hardware shop across the road:
While apparently uninterested in form, McCaffery has all the wit and delight in wordplay of an Elizabethan poet and although the impulse behind the poems may be too cerebral for someÂŹâmore effect than affectâthere is a lot to admire and enjoy in this new pamphlet.