An appreciation of HappenStance Press

Now that Nell, aka Helena Nelson, aka Helen Beaton, founder, publisher and editor at HappenStance Press, has sent out her final newsletter and announced that the press is winding down, I felt this might be a good moment to celebrate its achievements.

HappenStance started out as a poetry pamphlet press in 2005, publishing slim volumes by all sorts of poets, gaining most recognition for the début pamphlets by up-and-coming names. Several significant contemporary poets cut their teeth with HappenStance. People such as Niall Campbell and Will Harris, etc, etc, not only benefited from Nell’s editorial input at an early stage in their development, but they also obtained a calling card from HappenStance, in the shape of their pamphlets, which enabled them to make the step on to bringing out their first full collections with major publishers. All of the above led to the press being awarded the Michael Marks Award in 2010.

Moreover, in editorial terms, Nell ran a system of submissions windows. Poets sent her batches of their work, and she then replied with detailed feedback. Numerous well-known poets might never have been published by her, but her crit of their work still played a huge, invisible role in their development back in the day. Just imagine how many hours she dedicated to this selfless task!

And then there was Sphinx. Sphinx Reviews was a project that ran alongside HappenStance. It specialised in reviews of poetry pamphlets, a format that has long struggled to receive critical attention, and provided an incredible service to poets, publishers and, of course, readers.

By my tedious manual count, a total of 1461 books were reviewed on Sphinx, many of them by more than one person. That’s the equivalent of over 2,000 pamphlets that were received by Nell, repackaged and sent back out to her loyal band of reviewers. 2,000 batches of stamps to be paid for. Countless treks to the post office. 2,000 reviews that were edited by her (often to the huge benefit of the reviewers themselves, whose prose style and critical approach to poetry were often transformed via this process). 2,000 posts that were formatted, uploaded and optimised for search engines.

In later years, HappenStance shifted its focus to full collections. And again, it punched above its weight, garnering a T.S. Eliot shortlisting for Fiona Moore’s The Distal Point, providing opportunities to fine poets whose writing didn’t fit in with the criteria that major publishers employed to select their manuscripts.

And though Nell would probably admit that she was far more comfortable editing poetry than selling it, let’s not forget that HappenStance Press shifted several thousand units over the years, all via an unfunded subscription model with barely any distribution through bricks-and-mortar bookshops. What’s more, it published several volumes that reached out beyond the poetry bubble and found their way to readers via farm shops and wine merchants, etc, finding new readers for the genre.

As for myself, I’m hugely indebted to HappenStance Press and to Nell herself. But that’s another article for another occasion. Of course, Nell herself is battling on, still publishing her own excellent poetry every now and then, still helping poets out on an informal basis, still writing critical articles with a pen like a scalpel. It’s just that HappenStance itself is coming to an end. Time to celebrate and appreciate what it’s meant for so many people, the friendships and connections it formed among poets and readers. Time to recognise that it represents so much of what’s good about the poetry scene in the U.K..

For umpteen reasons, umpteen of us can say ‘Thank you, Nell’!

My personal experience of selling poetry collections in the current climate

With no access to slots at major festivals, no wholesaler, no chance to get copies on shelves at physical bookshops, no distribution in the U.S. or Canada, no realistic retail prices on Amazon, no reviews in broadsheets or major print-based journals, Nell (at HappenStance) and I have now shifted going on for 250 copies of Whatever You Do, Just Don't. And I'm determined to ensure there will be plenty more sales of it to come over the next few years.

In this context, I'm inevitably left wondering just how many I'd have sold with any of the external commercial support network I've mentioned above. And, given that many significantly funded poetry publishers (who do have this sort of backing) have stated their average sales of full collections barely reach three figures, why aren't they flogging far more copies than me instead of far fewer...?

Richard Meier's After the Miracle

My second full collection, Whatever You Do, Just Don't, was supposed to be HappenStance Press' last major publication, though Nell left the door ajar in case something special came up. Well, it did, in the shape of Richard Meier's new book, After the Miracle, out now and born from a huge sense of vital urgency.

In these poems, apparently simple words portray a maelstrom of life events. They provide a lesson in how to meet intense experience head-on, and turn it into art. 

I can't ethically review Richard's book, due to the fact we're now stablemates, but I very much recommend it to you. You can get hold of a copy via the HappenStance webshop (see here). It won't disappoint. 

The first review

The first review for Whatever You Do, Just Don't is in, and it's terrific! I'm very grateful to Christopher James for his scrupulous, in-depth feature on my collection for The Friday Poem. Here's a brief snippet, but you can read it in full by following this link...

Stewart is consistently sure-footed while navigating rocky emotional landscapes. He shows a craftsman’s touch for form, deft handling of syntax, and an ear for half-heard rhythms and cadence...There's a grace and an empathy at work here that make these poems slip deep into the heart, the mind and the memory...

Four sections, one book

Whatever You Do, Just Don’t is organised into four separate sections. Some readers might label them mini-collections, but that would be to view them mistakenly as separate entities that don’t establish dialogues with each other.

Ok, you might say, so what do poems about Aldershot Town footballers of the 1980s have in common with poems about life in rural Spain, for instance? Well, quite a lot now you come to mention it.

The main nexus is the chafing of belonging and estrangement. In the commuter belt in South-West Surrey and North Hampshire, where most town centres look alike, have similar shops and chain restaurants, where people don’t put down anchors but move around to be closer to a new job, there’s no doubt that the second half of the 20^th century saw a loss of community, of identity, which was pretty deeply felt by the time I was a kid in the area during the 1980s. In that respect, lower-league football had become a significant factor in generating or recovering communal identities. By supporting their local team, people belonged. And that was definitely what attracted me to Aldershot Town.

Not enough, of course, because I ended up leaving southern England for Extremadura, where I found a profound, established sense of identity in small towns such as Almendralejo and Villafranca de los Barros. In retrospect, that feeling of belonging was what made me stay, even though I would never quite be one of them, always a foreigner.

This dual perspective runs through Whatever You Do, Just Don’t and knits its sections together. By straddling two countries, two languages, two societies, I can’t 100% feel at home in either, but my perspectives on them both have acquired extra nuance, additional layers. In these poems, Sunday tapas and siestas in deepest Extremadura might even remind you of a nap after Roast Topside or Brisket in Knaphill or Croydon in 1979 or 1982…

Pre-orders are ready to leave...!

Over at HappenStance Towers, Nell informs me there's a hefty pile of pre-orders of Whatever You Do, Just Don't ready to be posted this week. Now's the chance to save her an extra trip to the post office and ensure your copy joins them by clicking on this link to the HappenStance webshop...!

My mate Mat

21st June 2017, a sweltering day in London, was a significant date for me in two respects. The number one reason was that it was the launch of my first full collection, The Knives of Villalejo, at the LRB bookshop. But the second reason is that at the same event I met my mate Mat Riches for the first time.

On that back of that reading (and a fair few pints after the event itself!), we exchanged a couple of poems by email, gave each other feedback, found the feedback useful, realised we also had a fair bit in common apart from poetry, and began a WhatsApp chat that must now have thousands of messages in its archive. It soon stretched well beyond poetry to the key issues of dodgy craft beer, dodgy football teams, dodgy knees and dodgy tastes in shirts.

In fact, I’d argue that every poet needs a mate like Mat, and I feel hugely fortunate to have found him. He’s seen all the poems in Whatever You Do, Just Don’t at multiple stages in their development, and has given me feedback on every single one, from first draft to reassembly after Nell’s ritual dismembering of words, lines and stanza of numerous poems that we had thought finished. Just as I have for him, of course. His development as a poet has been massive over these six years, and his forthcoming pamphlet, Collecting the Data, will be a terrific calling card.

Mat and I are very different poets, but I’d suggest the key to our successful mutual support is that we never attempt to get the other to write in our aesthetic or voice. Instead, we strive to understand, respect and sometimes push each other gently towards a stretching of our self-imposed limits.

Perhaps the only bad thing is that we now can’t ethically bring ourselves to review our respective books. However, that won’t stop me telling you on multiple occasions over the coming months just why his pamphlet is ace. That’s what friends are for, you might think. And yes, you’d be right. Though it really is ace

Oh, and we ended up organising Rogue Strands readings as a tag team (he’s Big Daddy and I’m Giant Haystacks), and will soon launch our new books together (my second full collection, Whatever You Do, Just Don’t, and his first pamphlet, Collecting the Data). There’s a beautiful symmetry to this process, as our meeting at my first launch has contributed in no small way to the existence of our new books, which we’ll now celebrate together.

We’d be absolutely delighted if you could join us to share the occasion at the Devereux Pub in London on 7^th November alongside three top-notch guest poets (Hilary Menos, Maria Taylor and Eleanor Livngstone), plus the shining presence of the two terrific publishers themselves, Helena Nelson and Sheila Wakefield. See you there…???!!!

What's in a title? How and why we decided on Whatever You Do, Just Don't...

A few years back, Nell from HappenStance sent me feedback on a poem. She told me “I like it, Matthew, but the title’s dead.” That phrase has stuck with me ever since. What did she mean? Well, the implicit conclusion is that the title wasn’t contributing anything extra, not drawing the reader in, not adding an extra layer, not coming alive. It was simply there as a placeholder, as if for internal use only.

And I was very much reminded of this exchange when we went through the process of deciding on a title for my second full collection. My initial suggestions were perfectly neat, summarising key themes or bringing them together, but Nell rejected them all, one by one, explaining once again that they weren’t bringing anything to the party.

She then came back to me with a list of potential alternatives. One of them leapt out at me. The one that she might not have expected me to embrace, the one that threw caution to the wind but worked perfectly: Whatever you Do, Just Don’t.

I was recalling her advice from years ago when we made the decision. This title is memorable, and that’s a good start, though it’s not enough on its own. From my perspective, the most important quality is that it intrigues and ushers you in, making you wonder exactly what you’re being told not to do. And in terms of getting to grips with the book, the implicit question is significant. Otherwise, this title could simply be seen as a gimmick.

So…what does Whatever You Do, Just Don’t actually refer to? Well, if you want to find out the answer, the best way is to get hold of a copy via this link to the HappenStance webshop…!!!

What are you writing about...?!

A few weeks ago on Twitter, I posted a short tweet that seemed to strike a chord if the shares and likes were anything to go by. In the afore-mentioned tweet, I suggested that I sometimes think I’m writing about one thing, only to discover, on rereading the poem months later, that my subconscious was writing about something completely different.

The tweet in question was implicitly referring to my poems about football in Whatever You Do, Just Don’t, my forthcoming second full collection from HappenStance Press. These poems are grouped together in the book as a section titled ‘Starting Eleven’, subtitled ‘Aldershot F.C. Footballers of the 1980s’. When first showing them to my editor, Helena Nelson, I was sceptical as to whether she’d like them, as she’s a self-declared football atheist. So I was stunned when she really enjoyed them!

On reflection, I feel this is because the poems aren’t really about football at all. Football is just a setting and a point of departure for the real issues that they tackle. In ‘Starting Eleven’, I’m exploring the classical themes of triumph and failure via the small-town heroes of my childhood, while also reflecting on 1980s masculinity, on how it was to be a boy or a man in that period in suburban England.

In summary, I hope you’re not put off Whatever You Do, Just Don’t just because you don’t relish watching people chase after a round ball! Apart from only comprising one single section of the book, they’re actually football poems for football atheists, poems that might seem about one thing but end up being about something altogether different…

London launch for Whatever You Do, Just Don't

London launch of ‘Whatever You Do, Just Don’t’, jointly with Mat Riches, who’ll also be launching his pamphlet, ‘Collecting the Data’, Tuesday 7^th November at The Devereux pub (7p.m. to 10p.m.). Free entry!

This is a HappenStance/Red Squirrel event with a rare chance to meet both publishers in person (Sheila Wakefield and Helena Nelson), plus readings from three exceptional guest poets: Maria Taylor, Hilary Menos and Eleanor Livingstone.

Whatever You Do, Just Don't

My second full collection, ‘Whatever You Do, Just Don’t’, is now available for pre-order from HappenStance Press. Please do support Nell’s terrific work by purchasing a copy via this link.

A celebration of Sphinx Reviews (2006-2023)

Sphinx Reviews is a project that has run alongside HappenStance Press since 2006 (see its website here). Founded by Helena Nelson and co-edited for the last six years by Charlotte Gann, it specialises in reviews of poetry pamphlets, a format that has long struggled to receive critical attention, and provides an incredible service to poets, publishers and, of course, readers.

By my tedious manual count, a total of 1461 books have been reviewed on Sphinx, many of them by more than person, the equivalent of over 2,000 pamphlets that were received by Helena Nelson, repackaged and sent back out to her loyal band of reviewers. 2,000 batches of stamps to be paid for. Umpteen treks to the post office. 2,000 reviews that were edited by her (to the huge benefit of the reviewers themselves, whose prose style and critical approach to poetry were often transformed via this process). 2,000 posts that were formatted, uploaded and optimised for search engines.

What’s more, for many poets, the review of their pamphlet on Sphinx was the only critical response they’d ever receive. That’s a hugely generous gift in anyone’s language. Looking back at the archive, there are a fair few poets who have sadly died in the intervening years, though their reviews on Sphinx remain. As a record of pamphlet poetry in the U.K., it’s irreplaceable.

And now, of course, Sphinx is coming to an end. Helena Nelson has given so much to poets over the years via HappenStance Press itself and via Sphinx Reviews, in both cases to the detriment of her own writing, but even this labour of love must inevitably be finite.

Like so many positive presences in our lives, Sphinx has probably come to be taken for granted, as if it were destined to accompany pamphlet publishing forever. It will be sorely missed once poets and publishers bemoan the absence of alternatives. However, its online archive is to be cherished and celebrated. Here’s hoping that in the aftermath of this closure, we at least start to see more of Helena Nelson’s exceptional poetry…!

My review of Hilary Menos' new pamphlet on Wild Court

Restraint is out of fashion, along with linguistic control. And few poets trust us to probe beyond what’s left unsaid. But these are precisely the qualities that make Hilary Menos’ poetry so convincing.

My review of 'Fear of Forks', Hilary Menos' new pamphlet from HappenStance Press, is now up at Wild Court (read the piece in full via this link).

Only 12 months to go...!

As of today, only 12 months to go till my second full collection comes out with HappenStance Press.

I’m still chipping away at the ms, adding a poem here, removing one there, tweaking a line, adjusting a stanza, pondering a comma, looking forward to sharing the book with you in November next year…

My second full collection

Massive news for me: HappenStance Press will publish my second full collection in November 2023. I’m delighted/chuffed/overjoyed, etc, etc, to have the chance to work again with Helena Nelson, one of the best editors around.

What’s more, HappenStance books are gorgeous objects in themselves. Now to keep chipping away at my ms, only sixteen months to go…!

Nuances and undercurrents, Helena Nelson's Pearls

When we approach Helena Nelson’s new book, Pearls (HappenStance Press, 2022), certain potential misnomers and misconceptions are worth addressing and dismissing.

First off, it isn’t really a collection as such. Instead, it’s subtitled ‘The Complete Mr and Mrs Philpott Poems’, and includes several poems that were previously published in earlier collections, now reprinted alongside a whole host of uncollected pieces. And secondly, Pearls isn’t thematic if we take that term as it’s understood by most people in the poetry world, i.e. preconceived, planned and executed as a whole. There are no fillers here, nor are there poems whose role is to link themes or join up a narrative. These are individual, connected poems that accumulated over decades.

And the above points lead us to a third clarification: Pearls is not a novel in verse. This is demonstrated by the fact that every single poem retains its value as a stand-alone piece while also adding to the sum. Nelson employs a collage effect throughout the book, implicitly building her characters and their stories via juxtaposition, each scene, each moment, each episode enriching the reader's experience, page on page, pearl after pearl. As a consequence, it’s useful to quote Nelson’s own explanation, which reaches beyond the structure of the manuscript, taking her title as a point of departure to understanding life itself:

...But now I feel there’s a sense in which all the moments of our existence are suspended timelessly, pearls on a string. Each moment contains the whole story: beginning, middle and end...

And then there’s a fourth issue to clear up. Poetry readers don’t often encounter the explicit, sustained deployment of three-dimensional characters, so it’s important to underline that these poems are far from being confessional in tone and content. This statement would be superfluous if we were discussing a novel, but even experienced heads often seem prone to seeking out pointless biographical parallels when it comes to considering poetry. Of course, any character contains a proportion of the writer that created them, but that’s the case in any novel too.

Moving on to the poems themselves, one of Helena Nelson’s greatest attributes is her knack for observation. Not just watching people and then portraying them, but the capacity to pick up on the nuances and undercurrents that play crucial roles in social and human relations. One such example is the closing couplet to ‘Back’:

…She is back. He is glad. And the bed is glad
and a pot of coffee is almost ready.

The ‘he’ and ‘she’ of this extract are the Philpotts, of course, the protagonists of this book. Their relationship, a second marriage in middle age, is evoked via snapshots such as these lines in which emotion is conveyed indirectly through the active role of objects such as the bed and the pot.

In technical terms, meanwhile, this couplet is fascinating. For instance, the penultimate line features three anapests before a iamb kicks in, drawing the elements together and offering a musical reassurance that’s mirrored by semantic warmth.

And what about the punctuation? At first glance, it might seem artificial or unusual. Two three-word sentences without conjunctions are then followed by a longer, unexpected sentence that goes against convention, not just by starting with a conjunction but also by refusing to place a comma midway through (at the end of that penultimate line). However, this punctuation is actually riffing on our expectations, surprising us and then turning inevitable, guiding us through the couplet’s delicate cadences.

As the clichéd rhetorical question goes, which came first, the chicken and the egg? In this case, however, we’re referring to the poet and the editor. Is Helena Nelson such a scrupulous editor because of her highly tuned understanding of the importance of the tension between sentence and line or has her poetic skill-set been further developed by her work as an editor?

Deep down, of course, the important thing remains that her awareness of syntactic and semantic cause and effect, already keenly felt in her first full collection, Starlight on Water (The Rialto, 2003), has only increased over the years. In fact, one of the aesthetic pleasures in reading this book is derived through observing an expert at work, admiring her control of sentence and line, learning from it.

In other words, Pearls possesses numerous attractions both for previous readers of the Philpott poems and for newcomers. Perhaps the most moving facet of this book can be found in the previously uncollected pieces that portray the couple’s ageing process and their slow-looming awareness of impending death. In this context, the books closing lines from ‘Peril’ pack a huge punch:

...of course they are not all right

but she takes him in her arms
and she tells him that they are.

The mirrored, satisfying rhythms of this final couplet strengthen its comforting effect. And once again, there’s that slipping-away and stripping-back of punctuation, leaving behind only the words and their latent power.

It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that critics’ and judges’ prejudices might well kick in and indicate to them that Pearls will only be of interest to women of a certain age and certain social origin. They couldn’t be more wrong. Pearls matters to us all. Like any great story, its specificality is what makes it universal. And then, moreover, for poets themselves, it provides an implicit lesson in the roadcraft of writing poetry, far more useful than any handbook or workshop. With such wide appeal, here’s hoping Pearls reaches the swathes of readers that its poems so richly deserve.

A close reading of M.R. Peacocke's The Path through the Wood

Within the constraints of the format of a blog, it’s difficult to do justice to the complex simplicity of M.R. Peacocke’s poetry. As a consequence, rather than offering up a condensed review of her excellent new collection, The Long Habit of Living (HappenStance Press, 2021), today’s post attempts an in-depth analysis of an individual poem from the book in question. Peacocke’s work very much lends itself to such close attention, rewarding the peeling-off of her delicately applied layers of potential sense.

The poem in question, titled ‘The Path through the Wood’, feels especially significant because it comes to represent something of an Ars Poetica and, by extension, a vision of life itself. The opening lines of ‘The Path through the Wood’ immediately set out the co-existence of opposites. This is achieved via their juxtaposition:

Through the little gate. A breath in, a breath out
measured the interim between is and is not…

‘In’ and ‘out’, ‘is’ and ‘is not’: both these opposites are interconnected by inhabiting the ends of consecutive lines. And then there’s the use of the word interim instead of interval, which might at first glance seem more natural. Peacocke’s choice underlines the provisional rather than the inevitable, the relative rather than the absolute.

As the narrator of the poem progresses through the wood, so conventional vision has to be put to one side:

…One sense became another: sigh of an odour,
taste of the darkness, fragrance of touch. My eyes found rest…

In other words, the absence of sight means that other senses have to work overtime. The consequence is transcendence via unexpected perspectives and sensations. Is the poet referring to a fresh understanding of the world around us or to a creative process whereby experience and anecdote are turned into poetry? Or to both?

The poem’s last stanza, meanwhile, not only draws these strands together but also opens out beyond the poem itself:

…The self that walked through the wood knew more than I,
till all that had led me, left me as I stepped out —
part with relief, part with regret — into fields of stars.

The first line invokes the sense of transcendence that ran through the previous stanza, but Peacocke eschews any Wordsworthian exaltation of the natural world. Instead, she uses the poem’s closing lines to relativise the narrator’s experience: led becomes left, while relief blends with regret.

And then, of course, she plants a deliciously ambiguous final image in our heads. Romantic? Stark? Or both once again? That interpretation can only depend on the beholder and the reader. Clarity riven through with nuance: M.R. Peacocke’s Ars Poetica and outlook on life.

Might and maybe, Alan Buckley's Touched

Long-awaited has become a tacky term, its soul ripped out by marketing bods who desperately hunt a unique selling point for a poet, only to find it’s ubiquitous and emptied of any meaning. However, there are still certain moments when it really is valid. One such is the publication of Alan Buckley’s first full collection, Touched (HappenStance Press, 2020).

Buckley’s work is riven from experience, both of poetry and life. As a consequence, his verse eschews facile certainties, setting out its stall early on in this book, in the poem Life Lessons, which assumes the format of a Q&A:

…How do I live without being touched?

Your skin will be become stainless steel.

How do I learn to survive in a vacuum?

Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t feel.

Of course, this poem’s significance is also signposted by its reference to the collection’s title. Moreover, its human questions, which are met by inhuman replies, implicitly encourage the protagonist and the reader to explore far more human routes. As such, these lines represent a statement of intent, the poet setting out on his quest.

In technical terms, meanwhile, what’s left unsaid is far more important than what’s actually stated. This requires a linguistic and thematic lightness of touch that in turn demands maturity. In other words, Buckley has left behind any need to prove himself via fireworks. Instead, he’s inviting us to accompany him on a journey of self-discovery through these poems, enabling us to reflect on our own lives in the process.

As mentioned above, the disappearance of certainty is pivotal to an understanding of Touched. Nuancing is present in each and every poem in the collection, and is often represented by the invocation of two key words: maybe and might. Here are several examples…

…Maybe, with patience,

both might be altered in some small way.

Or maybe we can’t be anything better than this…

(from Clocks)

“Maybe this is like that booth —

I’m Harry Dean Stanton and

you’re Nastassja Kinski….

…Or maybe I’m Natassja…

(from Confessional)

…Later, they might dress,

walk out for coffee at some café

down the road; or maybe not.

(from All That Matters)

“…Ordinary stuff, as if the years

to come were blank pages in a journal

that we might fill however we wanted…”

(from Things Can Only Get Better)

“…We part. I cycle down Cowley Road, mindful

of the oncoming buses as they swing out

to avoid the parked cars. It’s a glorious

July afternoon. Anything might happen.”

(from Cowley Road, 3.30 p.m.)

The last quote takes on added importance, as the action of the poem in question unfurls alongside the news of terrorist attacks in London. Buckley is unflinchingly portraying the best and worst of life, showing us how closely the two counterpoints co-exist, coming to the realisation that maturity and self-acceptance require our reconciliation with this fact.

Touched is a deeply moving collection, coherent and courageous in its poetic aesthetics and its attitude to human experience. Certainties are stripped of their facile attraction, while nuance is embraced throughout. Recommended! 

Point and counterpoint, Charlotte Gann's The Girl Who Cried

I very much enjoyed Charlotte Gann’s first full collection, Noir (HappenStance Press, 2016) and wrote positively about it last year (see here). It was an excellent book, exemplified by its slanted treatment of emotion, relating its characters’ experiences without any explicit evocation of feeling, drawing on a cinematographic approach to do so.

However, this first collection’s value is now further magnified by the publication of her second, which is also excellent, titled The Girl Who Cried (HappenStance Press, 2020), and by the poet’s provision of a counterpoint to her previous book in terms of aesthetic technique. In her new work, Gann comes at the same subjects of human relationships face-on rather than from an angle, thus initiating an implicit dialogue between the two manuscripts.

The Girl Who Cried throws off the masks and filters of the cast that was portrayed in Noir. Instead, it’s packed with intimate psychodramas that barely invoke outside elements. The poems are without titles, flowing or bumping into one another, offering us yet more points and counterpoints. They play off against each other. They inform each other. And this is why the absence of individual titles works so well.

One striking aspect of Gann’s shift in method is her move from an extensive cast of character in Noir, which included many poems in the third person, to a predominance of poems that revolve around first and second-person pronouns in The Girl Who Cried. In her new collection, the pronouns’ pivotal role is their fluidity from one poem to another, leading to reader to question identities and potential narrative threads. Moreover, they even undermine themselves on purpose within specific poems, such as in the following instance:

…And I see me. Bleak, brittle,

almost ridiculous,

and mauve with loneliness.

These subjective, supercharged adjectives and the use of the emotionally significant abstract noun are both examples of Gann’s change in approach, while the disconcerting deployment of both the subject and object first-person pronouns within a single sentence issues a challenge to any accusations of a confessional approach. Her technique implies that there’s an observer in the background throughout these poems, dipping in and out of events, as in this extract…

Being on the phone with you

is like skating on ice –

or rather, watching an ice skater…

In the above lines, Gann’s first-person narrator switches from protagonist to observer, highlighting the shape-shifting nature of experience, invoking the dislocation and alienation that can be caused by extreme emotion.

The Girl Who Cried is an excellent collection in its own right. Nevertheless, its significance grows further when placed alongside Noir. The two books not only provide us with two contrasting yet complementary perspectives on a similar subject, but they also enable the poet to burrow more deeply into her inspiration, developing new angles via those previously mentioned points and counterpoints. 

Furthermore, Gann invites us to reflect on the validity and coherence of choosing different poetic methods to deal with similar themes, showing us that her doing so can actually enrich our reading, contributing greater nuance and understanding. The process of handing ourselves over to her work allows us to reflect on the nature of human experience and on poetry’s wide-ranging potential to express it. Why not find out what I mean for yourself…?

Another excellent offer

Back in 2015, when reviewing D.A. Prince's award-winning collection from HappenStance Press, Common Ground (click here to read the post in full), I stated that...

D.A. Prince is a specialist in the almost-unnoticed accumulation of emotional impact. Her work builds imperceptibly, detail on detail, gathering momentum line after line.

In other words, her poetry provides the reader with the chance to draw breath and have a proper think. As such, Common Ground is an ideal purchase for these strange times, especially now it's been discounted from 12 to 9 quid at the HappenStance webshop. What's more, while you're there, you could also browse exciting new pamphlets from the likes of Nancy Campbell and Annie Fisher.