Poetry review – THE BLUE ARMCHAIR: Jennifer Johnson is impressed by the subtlety and careful attention to detail in this collection by John Froy
The Blue Armchair
John Froy
Two Rivers Press
ISBN 978-1-915048-17-2
84pp £11.99
John Froy is a poet whose work was previously unfamiliar to me though, of course, I recognise the name of Two Rivers Press, the publishing house Froy managed for some years. I was therefore pleased to find that I felt enriched by reading Froy’s third collection.
This book is divided into four sections. Most of the poems explore the complicated relationship between (what I think I can safely assume to be) the poet, (although it is possibly a persona), and his mother Anne and other members of his family. The style is easily accessible but has the elegance and restraint that you might expect from someone who has spent quite a few years teaching English as Froy has. The purpose of the language is to communicate intense experience in its pain and joy rather than to startle with any surrealistic weirdness. This is not to say the language is uninteresting as the writing intelligently, but quietly, surprises the reader by periodically dropping in the odd word or phrase from a different register. The poems show close observation and have been written with meticulous care.. Sadly, space only allows me to select details from a few poems in the collection to illustrate the points I’ve made.
The Blue Armchair gently leads the reader into the rest of the book with an introductory poem “Blue Dressing Gown – A reply to the Poet Laureate 2003” which explains how a ‘death mask’ was made and ‘a photograph’ enlarged so as to keep his mother ‘alive in a way’. The Laureate suggested that he could do this if he was to ‘keep on writing about her’. The first section of the book has the title “Looking for Her” and comprises poems that recall his troubled mother who was a painter. The poem “First Picasso” expresses a child’s experience of seeing a poster of a Picasso. ‘The first Picasso I ever saw’ was ‘Weeping Woman pinned curling to the wall’ which was ‘in the lav’ – an odd place for a great work of art emphasised by use of the casual ‘lav’. It continues
I saw her every time when I was small
– how she wept from all sides
of her fragmented Cubist face,
Instead of seeing her as the ‘grief-stricken woman of Guernica’ the child says
But I knew she was you
Who’d had it up to the neck with him
A friend has told him that the ‘red-lead doors’ of the house ‘were a deadly poisonous paint/that we must dare lick and see.’ This hazard – real or imagined – adds to the poisonous atmosphere of the place.
In the second section “Tender Years” the young person in the poem “Old Master” finds a painting ‘in the attic’ which enables him ‘to discover a bit more of my father’. Later he is told
Your father did that years ago –
still the awed tone reserved for him
which only fogs me more – Have it.
The phrase which was intended to clarify things spoken in ‘the awed tone’ has the opposite effect possibly as the young man is sensitive that the tone used was ‘reserved for him’.
At the end of the poem the painting is added to posters of his two favourite singers so enhancing the décor of the room.
I nailed up the painting in my room
with my Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
The third section is titled “Funeral Blues” and includes the title poem “The Blue Armchair”. In this poem the poet reveals that, when ‘others are shopping in town,’ ‘I become her/with her memories of light.’ The poem expands on this a few lines later with close observations of somewhere the present and the past meet.
I mean,
my closed eyes, my clenched eyes
– sunlight streaming through a window bay
to the saggy blue armchair surrounded by bags –
are your unseeing eyes, and that late
smacking sound of your pill-dry mouth.
The poem ends
I like that brief time
when I am you, you are me,
between what has been and what will come.
The fourth section “Rouge et Noir” covers a broader range of subjects though there are more powerful family poems including the prose poem “Teddy” about the poet’s grandfather. It begins
Shell shock hell in the trenches. 23.3.18, shot in the back at the Battle of St Quentin.
The wound healed but not his battle dreams. Nerves shredded, ‘fagged out’,
The introduction of the army term ‘fagged out’ after ‘Nerves shredded’ juxtaposes two ways of expressing shellshock in two different registers. Later we are told of his tragic experience after the war
The years of unemployment, continuing illness, war pension appeals – until his suicide in 1951.
This must have affected the poet’s mother who had to take a ‘Soup of Antidepressants’ named in the poem of that title. The poet discovered another of her problems later described in the 3-line poem ‘Oh Mum’s Vintage’
At the back of her wardrobe
a bottle full of scotch – Teacher’s –
came to light a decade after she died.
It is possible that ‘Teacher’s’ may be meant to warn her son not to become an alcoholic.
The last poem in the book is “Baby Sitting for Nevie”, a joyful poem about the poet as grandfather who is enjoying baby-sitting. There’s a delightful exchange in the lines
Way way, she understands and likes this book.
Ai Wei Wei, you’re a dissident Chinese artist!
Readers of The Blue Armchair will be able to share in an enriching emotional experience but one that is always well controlled and intelligent. I highly recommend this book for its beautiful production values as well as the poems themselves written by a poet who has thought about his subject over many years and taken great care with their composition.
May 27 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – John Froy
Poetry review – THE BLUE ARMCHAIR: Jennifer Johnson is impressed by the subtlety and careful attention to detail in this collection by John Froy
John Froy is a poet whose work was previously unfamiliar to me though, of course, I recognise the name of Two Rivers Press, the publishing house Froy managed for some years. I was therefore pleased to find that I felt enriched by reading Froy’s third collection.
This book is divided into four sections. Most of the poems explore the complicated relationship between (what I think I can safely assume to be) the poet, (although it is possibly a persona), and his mother Anne and other members of his family. The style is easily accessible but has the elegance and restraint that you might expect from someone who has spent quite a few years teaching English as Froy has. The purpose of the language is to communicate intense experience in its pain and joy rather than to startle with any surrealistic weirdness. This is not to say the language is uninteresting as the writing intelligently, but quietly, surprises the reader by periodically dropping in the odd word or phrase from a different register. The poems show close observation and have been written with meticulous care.. Sadly, space only allows me to select details from a few poems in the collection to illustrate the points I’ve made.
The Blue Armchair gently leads the reader into the rest of the book with an introductory poem “Blue Dressing Gown – A reply to the Poet Laureate 2003” which explains how a ‘death mask’ was made and ‘a photograph’ enlarged so as to keep his mother ‘alive in a way’. The Laureate suggested that he could do this if he was to ‘keep on writing about her’. The first section of the book has the title “Looking for Her” and comprises poems that recall his troubled mother who was a painter. The poem “First Picasso” expresses a child’s experience of seeing a poster of a Picasso. ‘The first Picasso I ever saw’ was ‘Weeping Woman pinned curling to the wall’ which was ‘in the lav’ – an odd place for a great work of art emphasised by use of the casual ‘lav’. It continues
Instead of seeing her as the ‘grief-stricken woman of Guernica’ the child says
A friend has told him that the ‘red-lead doors’ of the house ‘were a deadly poisonous paint/that we must dare lick and see.’ This hazard – real or imagined – adds to the poisonous atmosphere of the place.
In the second section “Tender Years” the young person in the poem “Old Master” finds a painting ‘in the attic’ which enables him ‘to discover a bit more of my father’. Later he is told
The phrase which was intended to clarify things spoken in ‘the awed tone’ has the opposite effect possibly as the young man is sensitive that the tone used was ‘reserved for him’.
At the end of the poem the painting is added to posters of his two favourite singers so enhancing the décor of the room.
The third section is titled “Funeral Blues” and includes the title poem “The Blue Armchair”. In this poem the poet reveals that, when ‘others are shopping in town,’ ‘I become her/with her memories of light.’ The poem expands on this a few lines later with close observations of somewhere the present and the past meet.
The poem ends
The fourth section “Rouge et Noir” covers a broader range of subjects though there are more powerful family poems including the prose poem “Teddy” about the poet’s grandfather. It begins
The introduction of the army term ‘fagged out’ after ‘Nerves shredded’ juxtaposes two ways of expressing shellshock in two different registers. Later we are told of his tragic experience after the war
This must have affected the poet’s mother who had to take a ‘Soup of Antidepressants’ named in the poem of that title. The poet discovered another of her problems later described in the 3-line poem ‘Oh Mum’s Vintage’
It is possible that ‘Teacher’s’ may be meant to warn her son not to become an alcoholic.
The last poem in the book is “Baby Sitting for Nevie”, a joyful poem about the poet as grandfather who is enjoying baby-sitting. There’s a delightful exchange in the lines
Readers of The Blue Armchair will be able to share in an enriching emotional experience but one that is always well controlled and intelligent. I highly recommend this book for its beautiful production values as well as the poems themselves written by a poet who has thought about his subject over many years and taken great care with their composition.