Poetry review â KARAOKE KING: Kate Ashton admires the range and complexity of Dai Georgeâs new collection
Karaoke King
Dai George
Seren, 2021
ISBN 978-1-78172-628-0
ÂŁ9.99
Anyone else who failed to follow up on a sometime passion for Bob Marley should get tuned back in to reggae, starting with Gregory Isaacs whose vocal tone has been somewhere described as one of âpained purityâ. Dai George is a fan. He must have a good ear for a sibling soul.
The poems of Georgeâs new collection, Karaoke King, are nothing less than transcendent. No tricksy stuff here. Just lucidity and formal grace; the words and the music. Their ability to move us to tears, to laughter, or contemplation of the mess we make of the world, and its extraordinary capacity for forgiveness, offering fresh opportunities for redemption.
Permeating the work is a profound preoccupation with love, embracing all colours, persuasions and proximities and patterned on the sacred. Extending from this is an exploration of lack, exile and exclusion: the plight of the outsider. And then comes the narrative of learning love, the trajectory from childhood towards some level of maturity⊠âwhen the Buldingsroman flops/exhausted on the other side of innocenceâ (âParty Timeâ).
The opening poem of the bookâs first section, âDoxologyâ, modelled on a prayer of thanks, describes the healing response to natural beauty constantly impinged upon and distorted by human anxiety: âBlessings flow, but trouble finds me/in the impasse after rain.â How short is our attention span! How perversely we reject consolation, distract ourselves from quietude and gratitude by
The parliament still warring
through its agonies of choice,
the hustle never ending
nor the trouble nor the joy.
A politicianâs voice harries the poet, damning his lack of productivity while he wanders through âThe Park in the Afternoonâ:
I see his point. Diverse and splendid
things have brought us here, we heathens
in the Christendom to come. The drunk.
the retired, the roistering lads
bunking off early with blazer sleeves
riding up their arms â each of us
truant and gentle for an hour,
our output no more than
what we can make
of the angle of
hurried daylight before
a shower.
And ominous, omnipresent, there is an awareness of climate change,
The weatherâs been a ruined party now for years.
It mugs and flatters, grinding through its old
routine while drifting out of key
âŠ. Itâs warmer now, but sicklier and wearied.
[âFooled Eveningâ]
Thereâs a horrified recoil from present reality. âI have only ever lived among pollution. Tell me it is not the sky I look at but an irradiated blanketâ, (âUniversal Accessâ). Georgeâs childhood world of âinvented tribes…kaleidoscopic culturesâ has given way to âthe promise of a never spent or perfected flux⊠âwhich keeps the poet tethered to the city. He feels the moorings slip; he must become a man, and in the world as it is now, âFar Enough Awayâ:
You mistake me for flesh: for the honest captain
who can follow where the cruising stars have signalled,
glittering and keen. My body isnât like that.
It remembers water, remembers it too well
when you come near, but returns each night
to settled pastures, indentured groves, the landlocked
love that doesnât think to guard or name its territories.
âNear Historical Swoonâ holds intimations of immortality extraordinarily deeply felt:
Watching from afar,
I thought that spring would hold, and save me from the man
I was: a homebound drifter shuffling laps around the park,
his government embroiled in vested sleaze, all hopes for what
heâd come to be not far removed from what would pass,
but far enough the deficit will make him swoon.
But heâs firmly on the road to redemption. Dylan Thomas boogies his way through âKaraoke Kingâ and George takes up the baton and the beat from his wild Welsh forerunner: âIambic I am,/real dolorous and rusty, and my chanson/brings the house down to an empty barâŠ
Here they are,
the ruddy legends â all yr butties dressed in tuxes on the
pitchside of yr dreams. Belting out unchappelled hymns
with boiled-ham patriotic breath, their brigadier goat.
Bethesda and Moriah, I have known thy deacons! I lay
down beneath their corrugated roofs and raged
raged raged against the dying of the greener grass.
Magical!
The thresholdâs crossed in the collectionâs second section, âFrom a History of Jamaican Musicâ; there are choices to be made on the way to manhood, nerves overcome, a voice to be found and heardâŠâSongwriters will understand â the void/before a melody arrives, when breath/canât seem to shape itâ, (âReferendum Calypsoâ). But then heâs off, quoting Lloyd Bradleyâs words from Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King⊠âthe sound system had been created by and for Jamaicaâs dispossessedâ, and the poet declares âWhich is where I first come in/feeling dispossessed somehow/at 18.â
Epiphany arrives on the âBus to Skavilleâ⊠âAn idiot weekend, balanced on my boyhoodâs edge/like a pint of squash atop a mantelpiece.â Heâs upstairs on a northbound number 23 from town, nursing âa bootless thought for Ellie Glynnâ while downstairs itâs all âDai caps, canes,/shopping for the week and summer coatsâ, and he plugs in his earbuds to blot it all out, tuning in to his newest acquisition⊠âTill now all songs have jangled through the unrequited trebleâ, but this disc, its burgundy box
sporting a horse with a Trojan plume â
goes chick-a-boom and canters through my mind
as if the cover pic were being whipped...
and
a heat comes down; a newly gifted knack
for walking with a naughty strut...
Timeâs up for Ellie and her kin, âPeople Rocksteadyâ:
Better get ready girl, your boy
is coming and heâs learned the way
to syncopate and shake his head â
he isnât saying no. Though born
a loser, he scrubs up fine â his
steps have cooled to gladness.
From here the collection opens out into the wide world; poems pulsing with a universal sense of injury and injustice for the wounds we cause and bear, especially for victims of tyranny â the poor, the oppressed, those with the âwrongâ colour skin. In the measured prose poem âSoon Forwardâ â taking its title from a song by Gregory Isaacs â George describes his Welsh background and upbringing embracing close family and community ties, socialism and Amnesty International. It tells how his father helped a Kurdish asylum-seeker to fill in his claim form, but the application failed and they never heard from him again⊠Another Isaacs song gives George the words he needs: âYou could say that home was as open as a door â a door you could nudge and step inside, if you knew it wasnât locked.â
The formally fragmented âOr, A Windrush Interludeâ is an agonised protest against white romanticism of Black âcoolâ: the excruciating demand that a âcharacterâ in beanie and fingerless mittens on Blackstock Road provide a rendering of No Woman No Cry, when the only thing heâs received from woman that week is a ânoâ to his citizenship claim.
A summer party, and in âSoon Forwardâthe poet watches someone put on the Isaacs track:
Soon forward, come turn me on yeah
My whiteness draws nearer, tiptoeing round the garden. Nervously at first it
shows itself, or what I mean is, for the first time I can see it [...]The whiteness
you know in Berkshire, which makes you feel like youâre being watched. The
whiteness your mother calls not being served, and I presume myself above.
This last line just about the most tender, abject, shaming and memorable Iâve read on the entire subject.
âParty Timeâ an elegy for the Jamaican musician Slim Smith, leads most presciently into the third and final section of the book, âSeptemberâs Childâ, where in âSun Has Spokenâ, the poet contemplates lost love. And lost innocence in âPoem in which my hairline recedesâ, where Bruce Springsteen stars as the epitome of high attainment, having written Born to Run at the age of only 25…
his album of awakening and fear
at the chances hurtling past on the irretrievable highway
Christ I canât stop staring at those deathless gatefold shots
where leather-jacketed he beams and leans on Clarence
man cleavage and medallion on show
as he sings to Mary
and explains how theyâve got one last chance to
make it real
America morphs world-stoppingly in âPost-historical Teatimeâ from the boyhood dream engendered by a ruby lounger on the pool in TVâs âneighbours neighboursâ and sleek silver aluminium tins of coke âstocked by Benâs mum in her fridgeâ, when walking back from school he and his friendâs shared headphones are yanked off by another boy who tells them âsome nutter nuked America/while we were still in period 6â. âNew York Morning, Six Years Onâ takes a wry look at the metropolis âthat turns routine commutes into a high/stakes hockey matchâ, where MoMA spits him out, hyperventilating, overdosed on postmodernism on Fifth,
where Trump
Tower grins through the morning. Bathed in a glancing
plutocratic sun, I feel like Iâll never stop falling. The city
swarms over me, crackle and dirt, a pitiless grinding signal.
It doesnât love me or help me up. It pulps me to beef on its griddle.
The collectionâs closing pastoral, âPink Conesâ, brings us back full circle… âThe door will open on a different garden,/air more intimate and careful in its reachâ.
A surefooted homecoming.
London Grip Poetry Review – Dai George
August 18, 2021
Poetry review â KARAOKE KING: Kate Ashton admires the range and complexity of Dai Georgeâs new collection
Anyone else who failed to follow up on a sometime passion for Bob Marley should get tuned back in to reggae, starting with Gregory Isaacs whose vocal tone has been somewhere described as one of âpained purityâ. Dai George is a fan. He must have a good ear for a sibling soul.
The poems of Georgeâs new collection, Karaoke King, are nothing less than transcendent. No tricksy stuff here. Just lucidity and formal grace; the words and the music. Their ability to move us to tears, to laughter, or contemplation of the mess we make of the world, and its extraordinary capacity for forgiveness, offering fresh opportunities for redemption.
Permeating the work is a profound preoccupation with love, embracing all colours, persuasions and proximities and patterned on the sacred. Extending from this is an exploration of lack, exile and exclusion: the plight of the outsider. And then comes the narrative of learning love, the trajectory from childhood towards some level of maturity⊠âwhen the Buldingsroman flops/exhausted on the other side of innocenceâ (âParty Timeâ).
The opening poem of the bookâs first section, âDoxologyâ, modelled on a prayer of thanks, describes the healing response to natural beauty constantly impinged upon and distorted by human anxiety: âBlessings flow, but trouble finds me/in the impasse after rain.â How short is our attention span! How perversely we reject consolation, distract ourselves from quietude and gratitude by
The parliament still warring through its agonies of choice, the hustle never ending nor the trouble nor the joy.A politicianâs voice harries the poet, damning his lack of productivity while he wanders through âThe Park in the Afternoonâ:
And ominous, omnipresent, there is an awareness of climate change,
The weatherâs been a ruined party now for years. It mugs and flatters, grinding through its old routine while drifting out of key âŠ. Itâs warmer now, but sicklier and wearied. [âFooled Eveningâ]Thereâs a horrified recoil from present reality. âI have only ever lived among pollution. Tell me it is not the sky I look at but an irradiated blanketâ, (âUniversal Accessâ). Georgeâs childhood world of âinvented tribes…kaleidoscopic culturesâ has given way to âthe promise of a never spent or perfected flux⊠âwhich keeps the poet tethered to the city. He feels the moorings slip; he must become a man, and in the world as it is now, âFar Enough Awayâ:
âNear Historical Swoonâ holds intimations of immortality extraordinarily deeply felt:
But heâs firmly on the road to redemption. Dylan Thomas boogies his way through âKaraoke Kingâ and George takes up the baton and the beat from his wild Welsh forerunner: âIambic I am,/real dolorous and rusty, and my chanson/brings the house down to an empty barâŠ
Magical!
The thresholdâs crossed in the collectionâs second section, âFrom a History of Jamaican Musicâ; there are choices to be made on the way to manhood, nerves overcome, a voice to be found and heardâŠâSongwriters will understand â the void/before a melody arrives, when breath/canât seem to shape itâ, (âReferendum Calypsoâ). But then heâs off, quoting Lloyd Bradleyâs words from Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King⊠âthe sound system had been created by and for Jamaicaâs dispossessedâ, and the poet declares âWhich is where I first come in/feeling dispossessed somehow/at 18.â
Epiphany arrives on the âBus to Skavilleâ⊠âAn idiot weekend, balanced on my boyhoodâs edge/like a pint of squash atop a mantelpiece.â Heâs upstairs on a northbound number 23 from town, nursing âa bootless thought for Ellie Glynnâ while downstairs itâs all âDai caps, canes,/shopping for the week and summer coatsâ, and he plugs in his earbuds to blot it all out, tuning in to his newest acquisition⊠âTill now all songs have jangled through the unrequited trebleâ, but this disc, its burgundy box
and
Timeâs up for Ellie and her kin, âPeople Rocksteadyâ:
From here the collection opens out into the wide world; poems pulsing with a universal sense of injury and injustice for the wounds we cause and bear, especially for victims of tyranny â the poor, the oppressed, those with the âwrongâ colour skin. In the measured prose poem âSoon Forwardâ â taking its title from a song by Gregory Isaacs â George describes his Welsh background and upbringing embracing close family and community ties, socialism and Amnesty International. It tells how his father helped a Kurdish asylum-seeker to fill in his claim form, but the application failed and they never heard from him again⊠Another Isaacs song gives George the words he needs: âYou could say that home was as open as a door â a door you could nudge and step inside, if you knew it wasnât locked.â
The formally fragmented âOr, A Windrush Interludeâ is an agonised protest against white romanticism of Black âcoolâ: the excruciating demand that a âcharacterâ in beanie and fingerless mittens on Blackstock Road provide a rendering of No Woman No Cry, when the only thing heâs received from woman that week is a ânoâ to his citizenship claim.
A summer party, and in âSoon Forwardâthe poet watches someone put on the Isaacs track:
This last line just about the most tender, abject, shaming and memorable Iâve read on the entire subject.
âParty Timeâ an elegy for the Jamaican musician Slim Smith, leads most presciently into the third and final section of the book, âSeptemberâs Childâ, where in âSun Has Spokenâ, the poet contemplates lost love. And lost innocence in âPoem in which my hairline recedesâ, where Bruce Springsteen stars as the epitome of high attainment, having written Born to Run at the age of only 25…
America morphs world-stoppingly in âPost-historical Teatimeâ from the boyhood dream engendered by a ruby lounger on the pool in TVâs âneighbours neighboursâ and sleek silver aluminium tins of coke âstocked by Benâs mum in her fridgeâ, when walking back from school he and his friendâs shared headphones are yanked off by another boy who tells them âsome nutter nuked America/while we were still in period 6â. âNew York Morning, Six Years Onâ takes a wry look at the metropolis âthat turns routine commutes into a high/stakes hockey matchâ, where MoMA spits him out, hyperventilating, overdosed on postmodernism on Fifth,
The collectionâs closing pastoral, âPink Conesâ, brings us back full circle… âThe door will open on a different garden,/air more intimate and careful in its reachâ.
A surefooted homecoming.