Brian Johnstone’s new collection, The
Marks on the Map (Arc Publications, 2021), takes those afore-mentioned maps
as a point of departure, observing their landmarks and the consequent parallels
that can be drawn with our lives, particularly with the ageing process.
One excellent example can be found in ‘Outfield’,
which evokes the development of an Ordnance Survey map…
…A slow collapse
to dereliction – flagged as ‘ruin’
there,
in brackets, on the map – then nothing
on the later OS sheets…
The poem comes alive via Johnstone’s
deft description of the human changes that mirror the building’s decline:
…The hillside
clear of habitation, bar the farmhouse
standing empty, your father
gone, bedded in a care home,
blind; the light I saw each evening
switched off, disconnected at the
mains.
In the above piece, Johnstone draws
mainly on implicit comparisons that can be made between the building and the
people around it. However, in other poems, he portrays the contrasts, as in ‘Primrose’,
which also begins with a reference to the Ordnance Survey before homing in
(sic) on the specific connotations and ramifications of a landmark on the
speaker’s own life:
...New housed ourselves, and wed the year
before,
we wondered what the place had left to
share,
what archaeology of home we might
obtain.
Some floor tiles, red and heavy fired
clay, we left
an age ago in a cottage long moved on
from,
and this small plaque still with us
here today.
A finger plate, it holds the touch of
generations,
the shepherd it depicts guiding them
like flocks
to lower pastures for the coming
autumn days.
This extract contains a pivotal,
beautiful turn of phrase, the archaeology of home, that very much encapsulates
the drive behind The Marks on the Map. Moreover, Johnstone’s tracing of
the gradual loss of the souvenirs plays a pivotal role in pitching his own
ageing process against that of the building. Of course, the evocation of autumn
in the last line invites connection with the four seasons of life, human
beings, nature and buildings all coming together. There’s no instruction to the
reader, just juxtapositions that allow implicit connections to be made.
Brian Johnstone’s interpretation of
the role of maps, landmarks and buildings in our lives is not only skilled and
infused with experience, but it also provides a personal perspective that
encourages us to view those roles afresh, leaving us to ponder the marks on our
own maps. It might be time to stow our Sat Nav and dig out those old Ordnance
Surveys once more.
