Poetry review – UNKNOWN WOMAN AND OTHER ATTACHMENTS: Jennifer Johnson considers a collection of well-observed vignettes and character studies by Alan Price
Unknown Woman and Other Attachments
Alan Price
Caparison
ISBN 9781068747519
£8.00
This 55-page booklet consists of two parts: the first Unknown Woman is made up of the vignettes of 21 women important to the poet (including lovers, friends, family members in Liverpool, women known only slightly and some who are imagined); and Other Attachments consists of a further six poems.
The style in the Unknown Woman section is straightforward, accessible and intelligent. The language flows with an energy that highlights the vitality of the women and there are many delights for the reader. Most poems begin with a statement giving authority to the poet’s voice. This statement is usually followed either by amplification or by apposite examples which can show both wit and sadness as at the start of the first poem “Tamana”:
You were drawn to mindfulness
in a house on a Welsh hilltop.
Instructed to love a guru,
not quite as severe as Krishnamurti
offering nirvana via the comfort
of platitudes.
There is subtlety here. The real guru, Krishnamurti, has an initial capital whereas the fake ‘nirvana’ does not, which is why it can be offered ‘via the comfort/of platitudes’. Although witty, there is also sadness in the gullibility of Tamana.
By contrast, “Stella” is a vignette with an emphasis on the enjoyably tactile. It begins
In the museum Stella was aroused by a statue.
She couldn’t resist patting his boyish buttocks,
wishing to be him for a day, exchange bodies,
fondle different psyches, stroke fresh genitalia.
In “Geraldine”, the poet demonstrates his sensitivity. The title character’s words convey her distress as in ‘Something’s eaten/me up. You’re talking to what it couldn’t digest.’ The devastating end comes with her writing on the wall ‘The family monster killed me.’ Words are used carefully as in the way ‘departed’ connects her wish to travel again after her early days of hitchhiking with the hospitalised reality in which she has lost her ‘sense of sense’.
The women’s speech in these vignettes is shown in various ways. In some it is indicated either by italics or speech marks and in others – as in “Chika” – the whole poem is in her voice. In “Dorothy” the speech is integrated in unseparated phrases such as ‘big mischief’, ‘buggered off’ and ‘no longer being flighty together’ giving a flavour of her habitual language. The portrait of “Dorothy” compares youth and age, the last quoted phrase showing an example of what has been lost. “Elaine” is another example. A writer who used ‘Irreverence’ as ‘her weapon’ felt that ‘something small, from far back,/tugged at her dress ‘just before she died. Irreverence occurs again in the vignette of “Miss X” ‘shuffling her bottom on the sofa’.
In the title poem “Unknown Woman” the reader experiences a discovery of the woman through gradual revelation. Initially we are shown only a young woman with a cleft-lip wearing ‘a cheap summer dress’ and her baby; but then we hear her speak, ‘excited’ to ‘tell the way’ to the poet before generously giving him a piece of chocolate and saying ‘It will keep you going. It’s quite a walk to the sea.’
The other poems are just as full of delights as are the poems in Other Attachments. “The Flow” concerns an unnamed woman who loved ‘a gender renegade’ while the “Untitled Woman” is vividly portrayed through a description of her make-up and her ‘trousers stuffed into confident boots’. The last poem “What is Night?” concerns ‘an insomniac walking alone’ which makes a sharp contrast to the earlier poems recording the poet’s time spent in the company of 21 women.
Feb 16 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Alan Price
Poetry review – UNKNOWN WOMAN AND OTHER ATTACHMENTS: Jennifer Johnson considers a collection of well-observed vignettes and character studies by Alan Price
This 55-page booklet consists of two parts: the first Unknown Woman is made up of the vignettes of 21 women important to the poet (including lovers, friends, family members in Liverpool, women known only slightly and some who are imagined); and Other Attachments consists of a further six poems.
The style in the Unknown Woman section is straightforward, accessible and intelligent. The language flows with an energy that highlights the vitality of the women and there are many delights for the reader. Most poems begin with a statement giving authority to the poet’s voice. This statement is usually followed either by amplification or by apposite examples which can show both wit and sadness as at the start of the first poem “Tamana”:
There is subtlety here. The real guru, Krishnamurti, has an initial capital whereas the fake ‘nirvana’ does not, which is why it can be offered ‘via the comfort/of platitudes’. Although witty, there is also sadness in the gullibility of Tamana.
By contrast, “Stella” is a vignette with an emphasis on the enjoyably tactile. It begins
In “Geraldine”, the poet demonstrates his sensitivity. The title character’s words convey her distress as in ‘Something’s eaten/me up. You’re talking to what it couldn’t digest.’ The devastating end comes with her writing on the wall ‘The family monster killed me.’ Words are used carefully as in the way ‘departed’ connects her wish to travel again after her early days of hitchhiking with the hospitalised reality in which she has lost her ‘sense of sense’.
The women’s speech in these vignettes is shown in various ways. In some it is indicated either by italics or speech marks and in others – as in “Chika” – the whole poem is in her voice. In “Dorothy” the speech is integrated in unseparated phrases such as ‘big mischief’, ‘buggered off’ and ‘no longer being flighty together’ giving a flavour of her habitual language. The portrait of “Dorothy” compares youth and age, the last quoted phrase showing an example of what has been lost. “Elaine” is another example. A writer who used ‘Irreverence’ as ‘her weapon’ felt that ‘something small, from far back,/tugged at her dress ‘just before she died. Irreverence occurs again in the vignette of “Miss X” ‘shuffling her bottom on the sofa’.
In the title poem “Unknown Woman” the reader experiences a discovery of the woman through gradual revelation. Initially we are shown only a young woman with a cleft-lip wearing ‘a cheap summer dress’ and her baby; but then we hear her speak, ‘excited’ to ‘tell the way’ to the poet before generously giving him a piece of chocolate and saying ‘It will keep you going. It’s quite a walk to the sea.’
The other poems are just as full of delights as are the poems in Other Attachments. “The Flow” concerns an unnamed woman who loved ‘a gender renegade’ while the “Untitled Woman” is vividly portrayed through a description of her make-up and her ‘trousers stuffed into confident boots’. The last poem “What is Night?” concerns ‘an insomniac walking alone’ which makes a sharp contrast to the earlier poems recording the poet’s time spent in the company of 21 women.