A lot of so-called socially aware
poetry falls into the trap of reflecting stereotypes, clichés and a sense of
outsiders looking in. In fact, a more personal type
of poetry is often more adept at capturing a snapshot of a society at a certain
moment. Ben Wilkinson’s first full collection, Way More Than Luck (Seren Books, 2018), is a perfect example.
Wilkinson might explicitly be writing
about an individual’s experiences in Way
More Than Luck, but he’s implicitly portraying the society that surrounds
and affects the individual in question. Let’s look at a number of pieces from the book.
First of all, there’s contemporary
U.K. society’s expectations, doubts and demands regarding the role of a young
heterosexual male. Wilkinson begins by homing in on depression, as in “Pal”:
“…he’ll be there alright. His smile
is a frown.
His frown is a scowl. His scowl is
the fear
you hoped was long gone. Still here.
Still here.”
The very title of this poem, and by
extension the naming of its beast, is traditionally masculine. The poet is thus
not only facing down depression but society’s view of how a man with a pal should
act, turning the definition of a “pal” on its head.
And then there’s the use of football
in poetry, male roles implicit once more, as is the mapping of wider social history
alongside the histories of countless families and lives, all filtered through an
individual’s perspective. One such example invokes and evokes a child’s first
visit to Liverpool F.C. in “This is Anfield”:
“…I still remember it like that: the
luminous pitch,
echo of the terraces, players
floodlit
beneath an October sky. An ordinary
game,
solid win, save for one kid looking
on in wonder.”
This stanza, which brings the poem
to a close, is an illustration of Wilkinson’s deft use of line endings and
sentence structures, first panning out across the stadium before homing in on the
eyes of “one kid”. At this point, the reader is reminded that the scene forms
part of a person's story.
As the collection moves on, so there
are poems with clear political overtones, such as “Building a Brighter, More Secure Future” or pieces that
set out to describe a set of physical surroundings with social connotations, as
in Byroads, which mentions “hanging baskets…the pub’s carpark…the village shop…the
borderline/where post boxes change from red to green…hillside housing estates…”.
However, once again, the most
affecting poems, those with most powerful social ramifications, are personal in
nature. “The Argument” is an excellent piece in this respect. Its final stanza
reads as follows:
“…And it isn’t that they won’t come
though this, but what
the house alone, insidious, is able
to articulate. Half-empty
cups on a table. A dust-thick
windowsill. A washer spinning
through its final cycle, like a HGV
thundering downhill.”
The poem in question is taking a
specific couple’s argument and layering it with their context. The roles of the
man and woman are clearly no longer those that traditional society assigned,
while this final stanza also undermines itself on purpose. It starts by stating
that only the house itself, internally, can find the right words, while it ends
by reaching out beyond the humdrum washer (who put it on?!) to an external and
extremely contemporary element, the HGV. The poet’s choice of simile is shocking
and mirrors a “thundering” threat.
Ben Wilkinson’s first full
collection is of the moment. It succeeds in capturing the here-and-now of
society via personal involvement instead of rhetorical soapboxes. As a
consequence, Way More Than Luck will
resonate for years to come.
