Right,
cards on the table from the off: Rory Waterman’s Tonight
the Summer’s Over
(Carcanet, 2013) is the best first full collection I’ve read in the
past couple of years. This review will do its best to explain just
why.
Certain
critics have referred to a supposed limiting “restraint” when
discussing Waterman’s work. I’m afraid I couldn’t disagree more
with their use of the term. In this case, it’s misused critical
shorthand to highlight the technique of emotion being distilled and
compressed instead of being splashed and daubed all over the page. In
my book, that’s the opposite of so-called “restraint”. It’s
the ambitious, highly charged and passionate search for the verbal
expression of intense feeling.
Let’s
look at an example of Waterman’s use of the above-mentioned
technique in his poem “An Email from Your Mother”:
“...Home
will never, quite, be waiting
the
way it was; your childhood is receding
too
far. Is growing older, then, forced unclenching?
Does
my arm curl round you like weed?”
In
the space of four lines Waterman arrows in on the specifics of “your”
childhood, before moving out to a broader question and then swooping
back in again. The universality of the question demonstrates an
ambition that reaches far beyond mere anecdote. This compression,
perhaps best represented by the poetic power of the term “forced
unclenching”, is packed with emotional intensity. Waterman thus
achieves empathy on the part of the reader, enabling us to draw
parallels with our own lives.
The
above extract, meanwhile, also leads us on to the key theme of the
collection: “Home”, that massively charged word. At this stage
I’d like to drop in an important caveat. Back in my university
days, lecturers would bang on about intrinsic and extrinsic
approaches to criticism. In other words, they would ask whether we
should view a piece with or without reference to the writer’s life
and other work. I’ve always thought that was a ridiculously
arbitrary division. Obsession with outside influences can lead us to
focus more on them than the work itself. However, it would be absurd
to ignore such influences. In Waterman’s case, there are two
crucial external factors to bear in mind when discussing his
treatment of “Home” in Tonight
the Summer’s Over.
First
of all, there’s Waterman’s own critical writing, especially his
recent book, titled Belonging
and Estrangement in the Poetry of Philip Larkin, R.S. Thomas and
Charles Causley.
In terms of influences, all three poets lurk in Tonight
the Summer’s Over.
For example, Larkin is present in the use of a viewpoint zooming in,
out and in, as in the extract above, while another poem is titled
“For R.S. Thomas.” As for thematic concerns, Waterman’s focus
on “Home” clearly resonates with the title of his critical
volume.
Now
for the second external point that informs this collection: the
poetry of Andrew Waterman, Rory’s father. Rather than a question of
literary influence, a dialogue is struck up between Rory’s verse
and that of his father. Rory's Tonight
the Summer’s Over casts fresh light on Andrew's A Father's Tale,
just as the latter provides a fascinating counterpoint to the former.
Andrew writes a poem “To my son”. Rory replies “To my father”.
The
story of their separation after Rory moved with his mother from
Ireland to Lincolnshire is personal, specific and universal. It’s
also extremely moving.
Here’s
Andrew:
“…I
walk again this curve of strand,
a shine of wet on firm gold
sand
blanked by 500 tides since you
knelt watching Daddy as I
drew
a little boy, inscribed your name:
RORY WAS HERE. Here
looks the same:
dunes, headlands, ocean charged with light
as
then, rippling to its long white
ribbon of foam, where bubbles
break
in millions for each breath I take...”
Here’s
Rory:
“…At
two I’d not grown used to anywhere.
By
five the squat stone houses, leafy streets
of
Dunston, rural Lincolnshire was where
My
life was, if for better or worse.
The
court heard our recording and agreed.
And
Lincoln was a blessing and a curse,
Where
Daddy lived each month, and lived with me.”
Andrew
desperately want Rory to feel Irish, to feel he belongs in Ireland.
Rory tries and fails. In another poem, “On Derry City Walls”, the
father teaches Irish songs, but the son sings them in “pure
Lincoln”.
At
the same time, however, Rory doesn’t feel that he fully belongs in
his adopted land. Just where is “Home”? Where does he belong? In
these times of so much demographic movement and changing family
structures, many people suffer similarly. Via the beautiful,
condensed telling of his own story, Rory Waterman manages to touch
such readers. His poem, “Growing Pains”, ends as follows:
“…I’d
brag about that “other home”
and
“other me” – not here,
like them
–
the
Irish me that never was,
the
bronze-haired friends I never made,
the
mansion where Dad never lived.
And
mourned the loss of all these things
I’d
never had and always had;
and
grew, estranged from Lincolnshire
and
desperate to get out of there.
A
blessing and a curse, never and always, here and there, Lincolnshire
and Ireland: each couple is juxtaposed and coexists throughout
Tonight
the Summer’s Over.
They mirror each other, just like belonging and estrangement, probing
at the meaning of “Home”
And
now I’ll take the liberty of ending my review as I began. Tonight
the Summer’s Over
is the best first full collection I’ve read in the past couple of
years. I just hope I’ve done enough to convince you to buy it.
