poetry
Anthony Lawrence
Chris Wallace-Crabbe
Whirling
OUP $19.95pb, 52pp
0 19 288081 0
CHRIS WALLACE-CRABBE's ability to reveal the marvellous in the seemingly mundane layers of the quotidian is a striking aspect of this new book. There are compassionate, fluid meditations on many aspects of urban life, ageing, and a quirky cast of characters from the poet's life and wide reading.
Disillusionment and faith can share the same breath, as in 'Glorying'
I don't believe that misery can be
These poems give me a palpable sense of Wallace-Crabbe's desire to connect with and explore the tactile elements and pleasures of life: walking through the suburbs, the smells and textures of wood, flowers, yabbying...as well as the untouchable, irrecoverable elements of time and death, both experienced and imminent. They are marked by an integrity and responsibility when confronting the shifting nature of his world. One of the most poignant aspects of this book is the way Wallace-Crabbe has chronicled his attitudes to ageing and death. In the opening poem 'Summers breath', dreams 'chug along in second/ like a T-model ford.' Blood is 'clogged up with carbon or sulphur...' and 'New joints announce themselves in thigh and elbow...'.
quite so brightly coloured
as happiness, as least not
on this cloud-marbled planet, this highly unlikely stage
for consciousness to prop and flutter.
The two poems for his dead son: 'Erstwhile' and 'Years On' are striking examples of powerful, lyrical elegies without a hint of sentimentality. Dead friends are celebrated with passion and warmth. One of my favourite poems, 'Memories of Vin Buckley, Spelt from Sybil's Golden Leaves' weaves Buckley's larrikin nature into a short, musical narrative that is both humorous and bleak:
Once you fell
I started to find poems that were scarred by a flat riskless tone, and poems rendered lame by unlikely images: 'the dustblue mountains were at rest/on memory's eastern rim/like sheep.' ('Of Finite Hearts That Yearn') 'A tower of poplar has beeen lashing away/like damaged birds' ('Timber').
into the fireplace, dancing with Gwennie
among the aphorisms of claret-purple cronies;
and rose up unscorched, blinking.
In 'Wanting to be a Sculptor' he resorts to the list-maker's easy rhetoric. Then Wallace-Crabbe ends the poem with: 'that would be the shot'. This kind of phrase is scattered throughout the book. Wallace-Crabbe has settled for clichés and worn phrasing, instead of working to locate something more indelible, original. It may be that he has intentionally used these lines in a coupling of relaxed and intense language, but to my ear they sound like lazy choices -- a rattle of deadwood. Some examples: 'They, even they, can brood over ageing.' 'From here to kingdom come.' 'Laying them in the aisles.' 'Under the circumstances.' 'All of a sudden' (used twice). 'They have been sold a pup.'