Will
Harris writes beautifully. Every line of his prose (as can be on his excellent blog) and poetry portrays the intense nature of his relationship with language. At
times he plays with words, at others he argues with them. Sometimes he savours
their touch, sometimes he pokes fun. Deep down, he just loves them.
Many
critics will rightly pick up on his
mixed-race heritage and knack for a limpid narrative, combined with his ambiguous sense of home and belonging.
However, his love for words, running throughout his first pamphlet, All This Is Implied (HappenStance Press, 2017), is what marks
Harris out as a poet on the rise who understands profoundly a fundamental
aspect of his art.
It’s all
very well to make such statements, but evidence is required to back them up.
Here’s an example, taken from “Mother’s Country”, one of the pamphlet’s pivotal
poems in thematic terms but also a significant display of poetic dexterity, as
is shown by the closing lines:
“…After
years of her urging
me to
go, me holding back,
I have
no more excuses.”
Harris’
placement of “me holding back” is exquisite. It means that the sentence’s main
verb and clause are also held back, grammar mirroring semantics, while its
delicate repetition of the pronoun heightens tension before delivering the poem’s
final, explosive line.
Another
important quality of this extract is that it it achieves its aims without any
obvious fireworks or flashiness. No allusions, no startling images are
required. It shows us a poet with a delicate feel for the flow of language.
Of
course, there are inevitable missed steps at certain moments in the pamphlet.
For instance, when straining for effect, Harris tends towards a linguistic tic
of forming clumps of three consecutive stressed syllables, as in:
“…But
what
forgotten harms grow spores
unseen?...”
In this
case, “harms grow spores” makes things unnecessarily awkward for the reader.
Nevertheless,
or maybe even as a consequence of these tiny imperfections among such delicious
mouthfuls, All This Is Implied
remains a joy. Above all, it’s a terrific introduction to a poet who’s sure to
build a strong reputation in U.K. poetry over the coming years.
