Poetry review – THE ADJUSTMENTS: Pat Edwards finds craft and imagination in Claire Dyer’s new collection
The Adjustments
Claire Dyer
Two Rivers Press
ISBN 978-1-915048-16-5
£11.99
Making adjustments is something we all have do throughout our lives, because most of us are dealing with constant change, unexpected diversions, wrong moves and right moves. But adjustments are often forced and, not especially chosen, except as a tool for self-preservation. They are a kind of coming to terms, needed in order for us to survive and move on. I’m thinking of ill-fitting clothes, items handed down or inherited, which won’t be functional unless a few adjustments are made – some taking in, some letting out. And so we approach this collection with all this in mind, ready to engage with poems reminding us of the people we love and lose, those who change, or turn out not to be who we thought they were. It’s quite a ride.
It’s interesting that the first two poems we encounter offer such obvious contrast. The first is quite sexy – maybe real or fantasy – involving the man kissing ‘her with his cowboy mouth’. The second is deceptive in its simplicity, offering us a view of perfect marital harmony, with its ease, uncomplicated chat, homemade food, nature as backdrop. The collection meanders through a life in which other folk come and go, even touches upon the lives of parents and grandparents before they had their own children. As it does so, it muses on their different lifestyles, their attitudes and beliefs, considers what we inherit or choose to dismiss.
Dyer is always playful and experimental in her style of writing and in how she lays out work on the page. She often favours neat couplets; I think I counted over thirty such poems. She also skilfully uses inversion, poems that are ‘after’ other writers, poems that incorporate white space, slashes, italics, even take the form of a letter. This keeps the reader interested and on their toes, makes them think about why she has chosen these tricks and tools to support her in gaining impact.
Some of the poems question what happens to us when we die. One such is ‘on arriving’ which pictures an angel whose ‘smile will be luminous’. This is followed by two poems ‘in the matter of silence’. The poet uses the same lines in each, re-ordering them in a kind of inversion. If this is a known poetic form, I was not familiar with it, but it is very compelling, putting ‘silence’ at the centre of the afterlife with white space dividing the poems in two. In “The Woman Who Becomes A Field III”, the woman ‘has to decide to stay or go’, and the poet uses a most striking image, that of ‘frightening oxygen’. I very much admired the idea that to breathe in air was somehow a terrifying act, the active acceptance of choosing life by expanding your lungs rather than letting yourself expire through lack of air.
In “At Belle Tout”, we are transported to the looming cliffs at Beachy Head in East Sussex. This is a place I know very well as I was at college in Eastbourne in the late seventies. It was known then and still is I believe, as a suicide hotspot, as alluded to in the poem. The poet cleverly refers to a couple holding on to one another as if to emphasise the precarious state of their relationship (and which can potentially overtake any relationship). I also admired Dyer’s use of ‘hairdryer heat’ to suggest just how exceptionally warm that summer was. Later in the sonnet “Between”, cliffs make a reappearance, this time to compare impending loss with ‘falling off the cliff, cloud, kerb’. The poet definitely captures the feeling of jeopardy and inevitability when facing the loss of a loved one.
It is hard not to be surprised by the strange title “The day I went swimming with Theresa May”, especially when it is followed by the lines ‘I was the floozy of us two’ and ‘should I beat them all in the Open Freestyle race…Dad’ll be proud at last’. Dyer shines in her surrealist poems, often imagining loved ones close to death or already dead, in dream-like sequences. In “The Surgeon Wife”, she imagines a woman cutting out ‘each rogue cell’ like a surgeon removing cancerous flesh.
I tweezer them,
drop them into a silver bowl, the size
and shape of this love, this love, this
After the operation, ‘there is no scar’ and the man sleeps peacefully, his breathing matched by the sleeping cat.
The poems are carefully and wonderfully ordered, each one often offering an echo of the one before, so that they are easily read and form beautiful sequences. As well as poems which take inspiration from plants, nature, the sea, there is wry humour. In “Limitless”, I believe we are taken to the funeral of an ex-lover:
the choir sang Parry’s I Was Glad,
the orchids on the altar winced
“Blame” is a very raw poem, depicting women abused by men: clergy; youths; boys who won’t take no for an answer; work colleagues; married ex-marines. These are all men who think ‘you look the type’ who might welcome their advances.
There is so much to recommend in this collection from its wide range of styles and arresting language to the way it draws you in with its intimacy and accessibility. There are surprises too with unapologetic line breaks, surrealism, poignancy, the deep connection with the natural world:
she spreads herself thin under a paperwhite sky –
under the red kites’ cries – spreads herself up and up
to the grazing of the field’s solitary horse, and rests
her bones against his neck, his drumbeat heart
Here is a poet whose experience and craft shine through. Dyer says what many of us may be thinking and feeling as we navigate our lives and consider what our life is all about and how to deal with loss and disappointment. She offers us comfort and confusion, light and darkness, suggesting that when we ‘hit the earth, the world will split in two’
Oct 18 2024
London Grip Poetry Review – Claire Dyer
Poetry review – THE ADJUSTMENTS: Pat Edwards finds craft and imagination in Claire Dyer’s new collection
Making adjustments is something we all have do throughout our lives, because most of us are dealing with constant change, unexpected diversions, wrong moves and right moves. But adjustments are often forced and, not especially chosen, except as a tool for self-preservation. They are a kind of coming to terms, needed in order for us to survive and move on. I’m thinking of ill-fitting clothes, items handed down or inherited, which won’t be functional unless a few adjustments are made – some taking in, some letting out. And so we approach this collection with all this in mind, ready to engage with poems reminding us of the people we love and lose, those who change, or turn out not to be who we thought they were. It’s quite a ride.
It’s interesting that the first two poems we encounter offer such obvious contrast. The first is quite sexy – maybe real or fantasy – involving the man kissing ‘her with his cowboy mouth’. The second is deceptive in its simplicity, offering us a view of perfect marital harmony, with its ease, uncomplicated chat, homemade food, nature as backdrop. The collection meanders through a life in which other folk come and go, even touches upon the lives of parents and grandparents before they had their own children. As it does so, it muses on their different lifestyles, their attitudes and beliefs, considers what we inherit or choose to dismiss.
Dyer is always playful and experimental in her style of writing and in how she lays out work on the page. She often favours neat couplets; I think I counted over thirty such poems. She also skilfully uses inversion, poems that are ‘after’ other writers, poems that incorporate white space, slashes, italics, even take the form of a letter. This keeps the reader interested and on their toes, makes them think about why she has chosen these tricks and tools to support her in gaining impact.
Some of the poems question what happens to us when we die. One such is ‘on arriving’ which pictures an angel whose ‘smile will be luminous’. This is followed by two poems ‘in the matter of silence’. The poet uses the same lines in each, re-ordering them in a kind of inversion. If this is a known poetic form, I was not familiar with it, but it is very compelling, putting ‘silence’ at the centre of the afterlife with white space dividing the poems in two. In “The Woman Who Becomes A Field III”, the woman ‘has to decide to stay or go’, and the poet uses a most striking image, that of ‘frightening oxygen’. I very much admired the idea that to breathe in air was somehow a terrifying act, the active acceptance of choosing life by expanding your lungs rather than letting yourself expire through lack of air.
In “At Belle Tout”, we are transported to the looming cliffs at Beachy Head in East Sussex. This is a place I know very well as I was at college in Eastbourne in the late seventies. It was known then and still is I believe, as a suicide hotspot, as alluded to in the poem. The poet cleverly refers to a couple holding on to one another as if to emphasise the precarious state of their relationship (and which can potentially overtake any relationship). I also admired Dyer’s use of ‘hairdryer heat’ to suggest just how exceptionally warm that summer was. Later in the sonnet “Between”, cliffs make a reappearance, this time to compare impending loss with ‘falling off the cliff, cloud, kerb’. The poet definitely captures the feeling of jeopardy and inevitability when facing the loss of a loved one.
It is hard not to be surprised by the strange title “The day I went swimming with Theresa May”, especially when it is followed by the lines ‘I was the floozy of us two’ and ‘should I beat them all in the Open Freestyle race…Dad’ll be proud at last’. Dyer shines in her surrealist poems, often imagining loved ones close to death or already dead, in dream-like sequences. In “The Surgeon Wife”, she imagines a woman cutting out ‘each rogue cell’ like a surgeon removing cancerous flesh.
After the operation, ‘there is no scar’ and the man sleeps peacefully, his breathing matched by the sleeping cat.
The poems are carefully and wonderfully ordered, each one often offering an echo of the one before, so that they are easily read and form beautiful sequences. As well as poems which take inspiration from plants, nature, the sea, there is wry humour. In “Limitless”, I believe we are taken to the funeral of an ex-lover:
“Blame” is a very raw poem, depicting women abused by men: clergy; youths; boys who won’t take no for an answer; work colleagues; married ex-marines. These are all men who think ‘you look the type’ who might welcome their advances.
There is so much to recommend in this collection from its wide range of styles and arresting language to the way it draws you in with its intimacy and accessibility. There are surprises too with unapologetic line breaks, surrealism, poignancy, the deep connection with the natural world:
Here is a poet whose experience and craft shine through. Dyer says what many of us may be thinking and feeling as we navigate our lives and consider what our life is all about and how to deal with loss and disappointment. She offers us comfort and confusion, light and darkness, suggesting that when we ‘hit the earth, the world will split in two’