London Grip Poetry Review – Kathy Pimlott

 

Poetry review – AFTER THE RITES AND SANDWICHES: Nicki Heinen admires Kathy Pimlott’s poetry composed in the face of grief and loss

 

After the Rites and Sandwiches
Kathy Pimlott
Emma Press
ISBN: 9781915628329
£7.99

This brave and bold pamphlet is an etched and stencilled particular of grief following the accidental death of Pimlott’s partner. Its melancholic patina, and somewhat lyrical bereavement song, is a detailed keepsake of a life entwined and celebrated. Its sadness is tempered by a dark humour, tears mixed with narrative strength: ‘I repeat time and time again in spoken and in written words to the indifferent or distracted: He has died. What do I need to do?’ (from “Death Admin I”)

Birdsong elevates and soothes, ambulance and police hold fast to the line of duty and life continues despite despair. But such a devastating loss cannot be compromised with trite words of solace; and, instead, Pimlott draws from the tragic trope and finds some comfort in remembrance and reconciliation with her partner’s memory and how it can be honoured. The elegiac form, long lines and a narrative drive, suits the conversational and confessional tone. There are prose poems that have a piquant honesty, and triptych sequences that arrive at pathos and a kind of hope.

In the second poem, “No shock advised”, a compressed and simple truth remains constant:

over and over 
the defibrillator says
no shock advised
because there’s nothing 
to be done 

and it’s done

but how still the sweet mad hopeful brain insists
it will be ok ok ok’

The honest tangle of meaning and remembrance looks at a life spent together in all facets, revealing memories of difficult moments of infidelity and hardship:

If you don’t ask for much what you’re given
is sumptuous. I found the roses you’d hidden,
not for me. This was not the first time nor the last.
I should’ve snapped the heads off 

not put them back.
                                    (from “Not like that”)

In “Death Admin II”, black comedy takes over and modifies the shock of a crippling loss. ‘At the crem there is a garden of standard roses / in rows, like a parade, a little army of remembrance. / That wouldn’t do for one who never could stay in line.’ We feel pain and sadness, and Pimlott’s grief, in these stained-glass shaken emotive words. Her bravery in collating this pamphlet is astonishing and makes it compulsive reading.

The poems also deal with urban living and central London seen through a poet’s eye. In the title poem, the flitting of a moth moves the poet to wonder if reincarnation exists – a thought that is ultimately rejected. Solace comes in memories but not in religious or other beliefs. The closing poem entitled “Coda: Tips on avoiding the offered consolations of Religion and Therapy” details in comic energy the rejection of organised worship: ‘Better pretend you’re a dog…then Therapy (all kinds) will be compelled to fulfil its cracker joke fate / and order you down off the couch, whereupon / you can tail-knock the vase of iris off the table / then lope away, one ear rakishly inside out.’

This kind of hard-won humour peppers the pamphlet in firework displays of energy. The trajectory of the work on an emotional level gives space for contemplation and a process of reflection. There are no answers to cope with the sudden accidental passing, Pimlott looks bereavement in the face and resists the temptation to gloss over heartbreak by romantic or sentimental words.

As a prize winning and prolific poet, Pimlott’s work is ever brilliant, ever shocking, ever honest. I look forward to her next ventures.